[Hunter x Hunter] Scamming My Way to the Top

[Boumargood]

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Chapter 60: Ten Meters

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​

'Dam—'

His attacker gave him no time to finish.

Something slammed into Tonpa's back, doubling him over and sending him flying several meters. He glimpsed the ground rushing toward him and tried to shield his face with his arm before landing on his shoulder and tumbling through the leaves. A tree trunk stopped him with an impact that forced the last of the air from his lungs.

The trees settled before his eyes.

His chest still refused to cooperate.

He opened his mouth and tried to inhale again. His fingers scraped across the dirt, searching for somewhere to brace himself, but pain surged between his shoulder blades when he tried to rise, forcing him to stay down.

A faint groan escaped his throat. A shallow breath followed, then a cough that shook his injured side.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

A shoe scraped against the ground behind him, and he opened them at once. His palm remained pressed into the dirt. His body still would not obey.

'Damn you.'

He lifted his head, pushed against the ground, and drew one knee beneath him. He had no idea how long it took him to stand. His arm nearly gave out, and his side protested violently as he forced his legs to support him.

He turned.

He saw the shoe first.

His gaze traveled up a thick leg to a heavy body, broad shoulders, and a bald head. The man stood a few steps away, one foot drawn back in preparation for another kick.

Tonpa glanced at the trunk he had struck, then back at the man.

'This guy...'

His stomach tightened. The face was familiar from the airship, but it was not among the original survivors he remembered. Probably one of the four extras.

'Don't tell me the first person to benefit from my interference decided to repay me by breaking my back.'

The man's eyes narrowed as he studied Tonpa's face. Then his eyebrows rose.

"Tonpa?"

He did not answer. He was still trying to draw a full breath.

One corner of the man's mouth lifted.

"I was looking for you... I didn't expect you to come to me yourself."

Tonpa felt as though the air he had just recovered was no longer enough.

'Of course. Out of all the trees on this island, I chose to land in front of my hunter. Damn my luck.'

Even so, a short breath escaped him as he studied the man's face again.

It was not Hisoka.

Nor was it Illumi.

Ever since the draw, the possibility that one of those two had drawn his number had been enough to dry his throat whenever the forest stayed quiet for too long. Now, at least, his hunter had a face he could look at without immediately thinking about his will.

'Fine. It's neither of those two. I still have a chance.'

Pain throbbed in his back, making him flinch despite himself.

'A chance to take a second kick if I keep standing here.'

The man's smile vanished, and he raised his fists. Tonpa did the same, a tremor running through his forearm. He was still panting from his fight with the owner of Badge 303 and the kick that had followed, while his hunter looked completely unharmed.

The bushes to his right stirred.

Tonpa's gaze snapped toward the sound, and his eyes widened before he could hide his reaction.

'Don't tell me there's another one.'

A thin man dressed in white emerged from the branches. His eyes fell on the body lying near the water, and he stopped.

"Barco!"

Tonpa glanced at the unconscious man.

'Barco. So that's his name.'

The thin man hurried over and bent down to check on him. The broad-shouldered man remained in front of Tonpa, looking at his fallen companion before turning his eyes back to him.

"You're the one who took him down?"

Tonpa swallowed, watching the narrow gap to the man's left.

"If I say no, will you believe me?"

"No."

"Then yes."

The thin man clenched his jaw and searched Barco's jacket pockets with frantic haste before rising.

"And you took his Badge too, you bastard!"

Tonpa wiped the dirt from his mouth.

"We're in the Fourth Phase. I thought that part was clear."

The thin man turned to his companion.

"Barter, cut him off!"

The broad-shouldered man, apparently named Barter, moved to block the route toward the stream while the thin man approached from the other side.

'It was clear to them, all right. That's why they want to take it from me along with the rest of my teeth.'

Tonpa's amusement vanished. He tightened his fists.

"Two against an injured man?"

The thin man answered coldly.

"You said it yourself. We're in the Fourth Phase."

'I shouldn't have explained the rules.'

Barter lunged. Tonpa saw his shoulder move and tried to block the punch, but his forearm came up too late. The blow slid over it and struck his jaw. His vision flashed, and before he could steady his feet, the thin man came in from the side and kicked him behind the knee.

'This is bad.'

He dropped to one knee. Before he could fall, he shoved the thin man with his shoulder, then swung a fist at Barter to force him back. The punch missed, but it bought him half a step of space.

Thirty exams, and all Tonpa's memories could offer him were a late block and a shove using his weight. He found nothing in them that could save him from two men attacking together.

'Damn it. If they close in again, they'll put me down right here.'

He feinted a charge at the thin man. The man raised his arms, but Tonpa planted his foot and veered toward the gap between Barter and a tree. Barter reached out, his fingers sliding over Tonpa's jacket without catching it.

Tonpa sprinted between the trees.

He tried to lengthen his stride, but the leg that had taken the kick faltered at the first root. He had to shorten his steps to keep from falling.

He made it only ten meters.

He passed between two trees and had barely regained his rhythm when a chime cut through the sound of his breathing.

Ding!

A red window formed before him.

[Warning.]

[The Host is in danger.]

'Dam—'

He ducked and twisted, but he did not move far enough.

A stone struck the back of his shoulder.

The curse burst from his mouth with the pain. He lost his balance, his foot sliding over the leaves, but caught a tree trunk and pushed away before he could fall.

'Even stones?! Aren't your filthy hands enough?'

Rapid footsteps sounded behind him, followed by Barter's voice.

"Damn it! I nearly hit his head!"

Tonpa glanced over his shoulder. The man was running after him, the smile gone from his face.

'That bastard... If he'd hit my head...'

He turned his eyes back to the path and clenched his teeth.

"Cowards!" he shouted. "Two men and stones? Bring some clubs too!"

'Excellent. Suggest more weapons. There are still places on your body they haven't hit.'

He cleared a root in his path and pushed forward into a long stride. Pain stabbed beneath his ribs halfway through it, breaking his rhythm, and he heard the thin man closing the distance behind him.

"How can he run with that belly?!"

Tonpa shot him a furious look, but dared not keep his eyes off the ground for long. By the time he focused on the path again, the footsteps had moved from behind him to his side.

'Not again.'

The thin man thrust his leg across Tonpa's path. Tonpa barely jumped over it, but the movement slowed him. Barter caught up, driving a fist into his ribs.

The air left Tonpa's lungs. He veered toward a tree and pushed off its trunk to keep running, but the thin man cut off the next gap.

He had to retreat. His back touched a trunk, and Barter's fist rose before his face.

'At this rate, I'm finished.'

Tonpa gritted his teeth and fixed his eyes on the man's face.

"Is that your mother?!"

The fist stopped.

Barter's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open. His head turned involuntarily over his shoulder, his eyes searching the trees behind him.

"What...?"

The thin man stared at him.

"Why did you turn around?"

"I don't know!"

Tonpa darted past them, but the thin man caught up before he could get far.

"What did you do to him?"

He reached for Tonpa's shoulder. Tonpa turned toward him before his fingers could close on the jacket and shouted again.

"Is that your mother?!"

The thin man's lips parted, and his head turned backward. He clenched his jaw, but the movement carried through, his hand veering away from Tonpa's shoulder.

When he turned back, his face was red.

"Damn it! How are you making me do that?"

"Is this some kind of trick?" Barter shouted.

Tonpa did not answer. He was busy using the few seconds he had bought to avoid taking another blow.

He tried to run straight ahead, but the thin man began closing in from the side again, forcing him to veer around a thick trunk. He glimpsed water between the trees, and his stomach tightened.

He was still close to the stream.

All this running, and they were driving him from one narrow passage to another without letting him get away.

A third voice came from behind.

"Barter! Kot! Don't let him escape!"

Tonpa stole a glance back. Barco had regained consciousness and was coming after them on unsteady legs, one hand pressed to his swollen jaw.

"He attacked me from behind and stole my Badge!"

'Damn it... The idiot woke up.'

The thin man, whom Tonpa now knew as Kot, called to him.

"Did he use that trick on you?"

"Yes! He looks at you, shouts that question, and then something forces you to turn around."

"How?"

"If I knew, he wouldn't have hit me!"

Barco did not keep running behind the other two. Tonpa saw him veer between two trees to the left, cutting across the route he was trying to reach. Kot approached from the right, while Barter stayed behind him.

'Damn it. Weren't two enough?'

Tonpa slowed before entering the gap. Barco was closer than he would have liked, and turning the other way would put him in front of Kot.

Barco reached toward him.

Tonpa turned to face him and opened his mouth.

The man's eyes widened.

"Not again!"

"Is that your mother?!"

"You bastard—"

Barco's head turned involuntarily over his shoulder. The muscles in his neck tensed as his eyes searched the space behind him.

Tonpa slipped past his outstretched hand.

Barter shouted:

"Ignore what he's saying!"

"That doesn't work!"

"Then what do we do?!" Kot shouted.

Tonpa did not wait for them to agree. He charged through the opening Barco had left, but the man resumed the chase while Kot hurried to cut him off from the side.

Tonpa kept running. His throat burned with every breath, and his legs grew heavy. The question forced whoever he directed it at to turn around, but that left two others free to close in.

He looked at Barter behind him, then at Kot among the trees. He could no longer keep track of one without losing sight of the other.

He covered another ten meters before the distance began shrinking again.

'Damn it. My throat's drying out from all these questions.'

He tried to swallow as he watched Barco change direction to reach him before Kot. Barter charged after them, anger driving each man to try to get to him first.

Tonpa's gaze caught on the gaps between them.

His eyebrows lifted slightly.

An idea came to him.

It was dangerous, and it depended on all three men being equally stupid at the right moment.

'Either this works... or they'll beat me until I really do need my mother.'



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[Boumargood]

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Chapter 61: A Friend in Need

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​

Tonpa's idea did not wait to become a good one.

It did not have that luxury.

He darted between two closely spaced trunks, scraping his shoulder against one as he ducked beneath a low branch. Behind him, he heard Barco curse, followed by Kot's footsteps quickening to his left.

The thin man appeared between the trees, trying to cut him off.

Tonpa changed direction at once, but Barter came from the other side. His fist struck Tonpa's shoulder as he tried to slip past, knocking him half a step off balance. Pain flared through his arm, but he stayed on his feet and moved before the two men could close in.

Whenever he gained a few meters on his pursuers, one of them appeared ahead of him, or a blow cost him the distance he had gained.

'If this keeps up, I won't need a plan. They'll pick me up off the ground and divide the pieces among themselves.'

He drew a ragged breath, then shouted as he ran.

"I suggest you stop! Hisoka is my friend, and if he finds out you're doing this, he'll kill you!"

For a moment, there was silence behind him.

Then Kot burst out laughing.

"Hisoka? Your friend?"

Barter spoke.

"Even your face says you're lying."

He was right, but Tonpa kept his voice steady.

"He doesn't like people bothering me."

Barco drew closer to his companions. His jaw was still swollen, and dirt clung to one side of his face, but neither kept him from hurrying after Tonpa.

"Then call him," he said. "Let him come and take your Badge with us."

The threat had not produced the response Tonpa wanted, but Barco had kept Hisoka's name in the conversation. Now he only had to stay on his feet long enough to make use of that.

He half turned as he ran and fixed his eyes on Barter's face.

"Is that your mother?!"

The man's eyes widened. His head turned involuntarily over his shoulder, searching the trees behind him for a woman who was not there.

He tripped over a root, caught his balance, and cursed Tonpa.

"Damn this stupid trick!" Kot said through clenched teeth.

Barter turned his head back toward them. "How do we resist it?"

"Don't give him time to ask his stupid question!"

'Wonderful. They're learning.'

The Skill had lost none of its effect, but two of them could keep chasing him while the third turned around. Tonpa needed a moment to catch his breath, not one opponent stopping behind him for a second.

Barco lunged in from the side and aimed a low kick at his leg. Tonpa saw it too late. He lifted his foot, but the heel caught his calf and broke his rhythm. He stumbled, reaching for a nearby trunk to keep from falling.

Kot arrived at the same moment.

Tonpa ducked. A fist passed above his ear, brushing his hair. He pushed off the trunk with his palm and ran again, his heart pounding.

His new strength and speed had kept him upright, but they had not given him any martial skill. His body responded faster than he could make decisions, and the original Tonpa's memories offered little beyond experience in running from angry people.

'One wrong step, and they'll finish discussing my secret while standing on my face.'

"Hisoka!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Where are you?!"

Barco called from behind him.

"Your friend can't hear you!"

Kot's footsteps drew closer again. Tonpa turned toward him just as the man reached for his clothes.

"Is that your mother?!"

Kot's eyes shifted involuntarily toward the space behind his own shoulder, his head following. His fingers loosened before they could close around the fabric.

"Damn you!" he shouted as he turned back toward Tonpa.

Barter gave him no further opening.

"Don't give him time! Hit him! He's about to collapse!"

Barco's fist struck Tonpa's side. He twisted enough to take some of the force off the blow, but pain drove through his ribs and forced the air from his chest. He kept running, stumbling as he went, his throat so dry that every breath scraped through it.

"Is That Your Mother?" no longer opened a path to escape. When one of them turned around, two remained to chase him. By the time he used it on the second, the first had already turned back.

He needed something that would buy him more than a second.

Something that would make them forget the Badge altogether.

He looked up through the trees. About twenty meters away, a broad tree stood to the right of his path, slightly apart from those around it. In the broken light, its dark trunk reminded him of a tall human figure.

'If this doesn't work, I'm finished.'

He remembered how many uses the Skill had left. He had held on to it until now because he had not wanted to spend one on a minor trick, but the footsteps of the three men behind him left no room for thrift.

"It's time," he muttered.

Barco heard him.

"Time for what?"

Tonpa reached a patch of ground clear of roots, turned toward them, and took two backward steps. He raised his voice with a confidence he no longer felt.

"You brought death on yourselves!"

He pointed over his shoulder toward the tree.

"Oh, is that you?"

'Come on. Don't make me explain that I was practicing how to greet trees.'

A white wisp gathered around the trunk.

The whiteness thickened around it and rose among the branches, hiding the tree. His pursuers slowed, and Barco turned his head toward it.

The mass suddenly contracted.

The tip of a shoe appeared beneath it, followed by a long leg. The remaining whiteness receded from a hand with a playing card resting between its fingers, then from a pale face bearing a small smile.

Tonpa's breath caught at the star painted on one cheek.

On the other, a teardrop.

'Hisoka...'

His fingers clenched before he remembered that he was the one who had asked for this appearance.

'It worked.'

An unexpected irritation followed his relief. He had spent the chase threatening them with the name of a man he had no desire to meet, only to feel happy when his likeness appeared before him.

He did not waste the opportunity.

"Hisoka!" he shouted, genuine joy slipping into his voice. "Finally! These three are trying to kill me!"

The chase stopped.

Barter went rigid. Kot's face paled, while Barco's gaze moved from Tonpa to the magician's figure, then settled on the card between his fingers.

Kot spoke in a hushed voice.

"It really is..."

Barter did not wait for him to finish. He turned and sprinted through the trees in the opposite direction. Kot followed immediately. Barco backed away two steps, staring at Hisoka, before cursing Tonpa and running after them.

Tonpa watched until the trunks hid them from view.

Then his knees buckled, and he had to brace both hands on them to catch his breath.

"Cowards..."

The word came out weakly, followed by a breath that broke in his chest.

He tried to draw air slowly, but his body would not wait. Short, painful breaths came one after another, and whenever he thought he had regained control, his legs started trembling again.

He raised his head toward the copy.

It was still smiling.

'Easy for you. You didn't take a stone to the back.'

He tried to laugh, but his side hurt. He settled for closing his mouth and waiting until he could stand without the ground tilting beneath him.

One use had saved him from all three. Now he had to get away before the minute ended or one of them decided to return.

He turned his back on the figure and walked. His steps were shorter than he wanted, his feet heavier than he remembered. He stepped over a small root, and the movement nearly brought him down.

'Just a little farther...'

"Were you looking for me?"

His foot stopped in mid-step.

He knew that voice.

For a moment, he kept staring at the dirt, as though putting off the turn might give him a better explanation.

Ding!

[Warning: An extremely dangerous individual is watching the Host.]

The sweat at his neck turned cold.

The copy was several steps behind him. The voice, however, had come from directly behind his right shoulder.

He turned as far as his back would allow.

The first thing he saw was a playing card moving between two fingers. He raised his gaze and found the star and the teardrop. Above them, two eyes followed his movement.

His mouth parted.

Hisoka's name would not come out.

The man kept watching him as Tonpa drew a small breath that never quite filled his lungs.

'Damn it... How do I get out of this?'

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 62: The Tonpa I Know

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​

Tonpa took a step back without taking his eyes off the face so close to his own.

His heel caught against a root, throwing him off balance. He braced his legs to keep from falling. His side tightened beneath his shirt, and his mouth stayed open as he struggled to finish drawing breath.

Hisoka really was standing in front of him.

'Damn my luck.'

His foot moved backward again. The magician did not follow. He merely watched, then turned his head slightly toward the copy standing where the tree had been. His gaze moved between the identical face and Tonpa's, and his smile widened.

At the edge of his vision, Tonpa spotted a narrow passage between two trunks to his left. He kept trying to judge the distance without looking away from the magician. Two steps, perhaps three, and he could put the trees between them.

But Hisoka was closer than the passage.

And if he stayed, what was he supposed to say? That he had borrowed Hisoka's face for a moment? That the experiment was over and they could both get on with their day?

'Run.'

He readied his foot to push off, but his eyes remained fixed on the magician.

'He'll reach you before you turn around.'

Hisoka's hand moved, cutting off his thoughts.

The magician slowly turned the playing card between his fingers until its edge faced Tonpa. Tonpa stopped backing away and cautiously shifted his weight forward, abandoning the step he had almost taken.

'Damn it.'

He raised his hands a little. He did not try to smile. He could not trust the expression that might appear on his face, or how Hisoka would read it.

The magician spoke.

"Weren't you calling me?"

Tonpa's throat bobbed.

"I..."

The card tilted between the two fingers, cutting the word short.

"Aren't I your friend? Why are you moving away?"

Tonpa looked back at his face. The answer was humiliatingly obvious, but saying it would not help him stay alive.

"I didn't mean that..."

"Then what did you mean?"

Tonpa's eyelids fluttered. He could think of nothing to say.

'Damn this lunatic.'

Hisoka's smile widened as he examined Tonpa's raised hands.

"Anyway, why do you look so frightened?"

'Because you're here, you lunatic. Obviously.'

The thought almost helped him pull himself together, but the card moved again, drawing his attention straight back to it. He needed an opening, even a moment in which Hisoka looked at something else.

Ding!

The chime tore through his thoughts, making his shoulder jerk.

'What?'

Words appeared before his eyes.

[One minute has passed since "Oh, Is That You?" was activated.]

[Skill Effect Ended.]

[Remaining Uses: 2/3]

As soon as the notification was complete, whiteness gathered around the copy.

Hisoka turned his head toward it, and the card stopped moving between his fingers. The star and teardrop blurred, and the face began dissolving into the mist. As it receded, branches and leaves emerged, and bark appeared where the body had been.

Nothing remained of the copy.

The magician's eyebrow rose. His lips moved slightly, but no sound came out.

'Please work.'

Tonpa filled his chest with as much air as he could and shouted at Hisoka.

"Is that your mother?!"

The magician's smile faltered, and his eyes widened slightly.

His pupils darted toward the corners of his eyes. The muscles in his neck began contracting as though they were about to turn his head toward the space behind his shoulder.

But he did not turn around.

Tonpa waited no longer.

He spun and lunged toward the passage. His leg faltered on the first step, forcing him to throw out an arm to avoid hitting the trunk. His shoulder passed close to the bark, and a branch slapped his cheek as he broke through to the other side.

'Move!'

Pain dug beneath his ribs. He took short, broken breaths and drove his legs onward despite his body's protests. He was not running as fast as he wanted, but trees were beginning to separate him from the spot where he had left Hisoka.

He heard no footsteps behind him.

He did not dare check.

Ding!

[Warning.]

[The Host is in danger.]

'Dam—'

He planted his foot and veered left, ducking his head.

Something passed beside his neck.

A sharp sting, followed by a dry impact ahead. He glimpsed a white card embedded in the bark, directly along the path he would have taken a moment earlier.

His stride faltered, but he kept running. He touched his neck, then pulled his fingers away and saw blood on them.

'If I'd been any slower...'

He darted behind the nearest trunk before finishing the thought.

The open path no longer looked inviting. He swerved around a bush, then passed between two trees to get clear of the line of the previous throw. The new cut stung, and the pain in his side worsened whenever he had to change direction.

A groan rose in his throat. He stifled it between his teeth. Hisoka did not need any more help finding him.

Several seconds passed without another attack.

A small hope crept in with every tree he passed. Perhaps Hisoka had stayed to examine the tree. Perhaps he had only meant to frighten him and was letting him escape.

Tonpa clung to the last possibility despite the blood trickling beneath his collar.

He did not want to stop, but his body was beginning to force the issue. He was dragging his feet more than lifting them, and each breath came to an abrupt stop before his lungs could fill.

His foot slipped among the leaves. He swung an arm to regain his balance, then continued with shorter steps.

Everything behind him remained silent.

That no longer reassured him. He stared at the path ahead, putting off the backward glance one step at a time. He was afraid he would find Hisoka close enough to see his smile.

Doubt finally won. He turned his head sharply.

No one.

The bush he had pushed through was still trembling slightly, and the passage between the trunks was clearly visible. He slowed, watching the empty space before lifting his gaze to the branches above it.

'No... Where did he go?'

The relief he had expected never came.

He began turning forward again, a single thought hammering through his head.

'If he isn't behind me, then where—'

A hand appeared at the edge of his vision.

He saw it reaching for his neck from in front of him. His eyes widened, and he raised his arm to block it, but the hand closed around his throat before he could reach it.

His forward momentum stopped violently. His feet left the ground, and his breath caught in his throat. He clutched the wrist with both hands, pushing without shifting it.

He raised his eyes.

Hisoka stood before him.

His breathing had not quickened. Even his smile was just as Tonpa had left it, as though the distance that had nearly torn his lungs apart had been no more than a casual step for the magician.

He tried to slip a finger between the hand and his throat but found no room. He pulled at the wrist with all his strength. Pain flared through his injured shoulder without the grip moving at all.

His feet searched for the ground.

They did not reach it.

Hisoka's smile faded slightly, and his tone changed.

"What did you just use?"

Tonpa's mouth moved without a sound.

'Air...'

The pressure eased a little. He drew a sharp breath, followed by a coughing fit that shook his whole body. He clung to the wrist until it passed, then kept drawing short breaths through the narrow opening the fingers allowed.

Hisoka waited.

"You don't use Nen."

His eyes settled on Tonpa's face.

"So what almost made me turn around?"

Tonpa tried to swallow. The fingers pressing against his throat made it hurt, and a faint groan escaped him.

"It's..."

The word stopped.

The magician did not hurry him. He simply held him there and waited while Tonpa searched for an answer he could give.

The System was not an option.

If he told Hisoka about it, knowing why the question had affected him would not be enough. He might decide to keep Tonpa around to see what else he could get out of him.

The magician's fingers shifted slightly against his neck, and Tonpa forced the words out.

"A Skill... passed down in my family."

Hisoka raised an eyebrow.

He loosened his grip a little. Tonpa took another breath and used it before it was gone.

"We learn it... as children."

The magician smiled.

Ding!

[Persuasion Failed.]

'Damn it.'

Tonpa's eyes caught on the line before returning to the face so close to his own. He needed a detail to support the lie. A name, a condition, a reason other people could not learn it.

If he had been sitting down and able to breathe, he would have thought of something.

Now, every possibility that began to take shape scattered when he felt the fingers pressing against his throat.

"As children?"

He nodded as much as the grip allowed.

Hisoka spoke.

"I was at the previous Exam."

Tonpa's next attempt to speak stopped.

"I saw you ruin the rookies' chances, then walk away when you were done."

The magician's gaze dropped to his dangling legs.

"I never saw this kind of speed."

It returned to his face.

"Or these tricks."

Tonpa wanted to say he had hidden them. That he had not needed them. That his family had forbidden him from using them in front of others.

He chose the shortest answer he could manage.

"Didn't... need..."

The grip tightened, cutting off the sentence.

Hisoka watched his lips.

"Were you saving them for this Exam?"

Tonpa tried to pull himself up a little against the wrist, taking some of the weight off his neck. His arms trembled, then failed to hold him there.

His body dropped the short distance he had gained, and the pressure returned, worse than before.

Hisoka had believed none of it.

And the next lie would never make it out.

His feet began to move less. He could no longer judge how far they were from the ground, and the edges of Hisoka's face were starting to blur.

Tonpa blinked hard. For a moment, the eyes came back into focus.

So did the smile.

"The Tonpa I know was never this interesting."

Tonpa moved his lips.

The question.

If he could say it again, those eyes might turn away from him. Perhaps the grip would loosen a little. He needed no more than—

A brief rasp escaped him.

He tried to inhale, but his chest contracted without filling. He pushed at the wrist, then pulled, the two movements beginning to blur together in his mind.

One hand slipped.

He caught the wrist again in panic, digging his fingers into it with what strength he had left.

'No...'

Hisoka's free hand rose before him.

Another playing card appeared between its fingers, drawing Tonpa's gaze. Its edge was clean, with no blood or trace of anything it had cut.

"It was a pleasure meeting you," the magician said with a smile. "But you have to die now."

Tonpa's heart stopped for a moment.

'Wait!'

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The card had already begun to move. He tried to twist away from it, but Hisoka's hand held his neck firmly, his feet dangling in the air.

Nothing remained in his vision but the approaching white edge.

The cut on his neck stung, reminding him how narrowly he had escaped the previous card. This time, there was no room to pull back.

A sharp whistle tore through the air beside his ear.

'Wha—'

A small object shot past his side and struck Hisoka in the face before Tonpa could follow it with his eyes.

The magician's head jerked sideways.

The card stopped.

Tonpa did not move. He waited for the edge to touch him, but it stayed clear of his skin. He kept staring at Hisoka's face until he caught sight of a thin, taut line stretching between the trees.

His eyes widened in disbelief.

'That line...?'

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 63: A Stolen Second

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

The line remained taut between the trees.

Hisoka's head tilted under the blow, the playing card still raised near Tonpa's face. Through blurred eyes, Tonpa watched the stone weight rebound from the magician's cheek. The line slackened for an instant, and the hook dropped in front of his chest.

The movement did not end at Hisoka's face.

The hook caught beneath the rim of Badge 44.

A sharp, sudden tug came from among the trees. The pin resisted for a moment, then a small patch of fabric tore, and the Badge shot toward the trees with the hook, glinting as it swung at the end of the line.

Hisoka's eyes followed the Badge.

Tonpa saw them turn away from his face. The Badge was swinging at the end of the line, the card was still close to his eye, and the hand remained clamped around his neck.

'He's looking at it.'

Hisoka's fingers loosened slightly. It was not freedom, but it allowed Tonpa to draw a ragged breath. He suppressed the cough that nearly wasted it. He had to use that breath before the magician's eyes returned to him.

"Is that... your mother?!"

The question came out hoarse, the final word scraping his throat.

Hisoka's eyes stopped tracking the Badge and darted to one side. The muscles in his neck tightened, but he resisted turning again. The card remained motionless near Tonpa's face, and the grip had yet to tighten fully.

'Now!'

Tonpa let go of Hisoka's wrist with one hand and clenched that hand into a fist. He turned his shoulder as far as his position allowed, then drove his fist into Hisoka's stomach.

It struck taut muscle as though hitting a wall covered in cloth. Pain shot back into his wrist. Hisoka did not double over, but his foot shifted half a step backward, and his fingers opened briefly around Tonpa's neck.

Tonpa tucked his chin and pushed against the wrist with both hands, throwing his weight downward.

The grip slipped off his jaw.

His feet hit the ground awkwardly. He nearly collapsed onto his knees, but drove himself forward before he had fully straightened.

He did not attempt a second punch.

He turned and ran as fast as he could.

Air scraped through his swollen throat, and his ribs burned with every step, but he did not slow. Until he passed the first tree trunk, he kept expecting those fingers to close around his neck again.

A single second was a fortune when death had you by the throat.

"Run, Tonpa!"

Gon's voice came from among the trees to his right.

He did not need the advice. Even so, he glanced toward the sound and caught sight of a green jacket moving between the trunks, a fishing rod raised over its owner's shoulder. Badge 44 swung near Gon's hand as he ran diagonally away from Tonpa.

'He steals Hisoka's Badge, then shouts to give away his position. Courage and a death wish are alarmingly close neighbors in that child.'

Gon could have stayed hidden and waited for another chance at the Badge. Instead, he had struck before the card could come down on Tonpa.

That seemed like more than convenient timing for a theft.

Tonpa saved his gratitude for a better moment.

The present one was reserved for staying alive.

He jumped over a raised root and headed toward a line of rocks. He forced himself not to look back, but the absence of footsteps behind him became more frightening than their presence.

He could not stand it. Before the rocks blocked his view, he looked back through a gap between the trunks.

Hisoka was still standing where Tonpa had left him. He placed one hand over his stomach, then wiped his cheek with the back of the hand holding the card. His gaze moved between Tonpa and Gon, his eyes still slightly widened.

Then his smile grew.

"Interesting."

He turned in the direction Gon had fled.

Then he vanished among the trees.

Tonpa faced forward again and nearly ran into a trunk. He swerved around it and disappeared behind the rocks.

'He chose the one with the Badge. Excellent decision. I never doubted his wisdom for a moment.'

He did not stop running until his heartbeat drowned out the sounds of the forest.

When his legs could take no more, he walked with one palm pressed against his side. He followed a winding route, crossing water whenever he found it and taking cover to listen before continuing. He saw no sign of Hisoka, but that was no longer enough to reassure him.

The journey dragged on. Light withdrew from the ground to the tree trunks, until only a little remained in the branches above. Tonpa tried to hurry before it disappeared altogether, but pain in his leg forced him to shorten his stride.

'Fine. We'll die slowly, then. No need to rush.'

He kept walking. By the time he recognized the rocks around the cave, he could barely make out each foothold until he was close to it. He stopped before the black opening at the base of the rise and listened carefully.

He inspected the ground around it, threw a stone inside as he had the previous night, and waited.

Hisoka did not come out.

That was enough.

Tonpa entered and went deeper until the bend in the cave hid him from the entrance. He sat near the wall and retrieved a handful of wild berries from Spatial Storage. He had picked them on his way here.

He chose one and raised it to his mouth.

Then his hand stopped.

He had been hungry when he picked them. Now, with one so close to his mouth, he began wondering whether hunger alone qualified him to choose his food.

He rolled the berry between two fingers, then brought it closer to his nose.

'I survive Hisoka, then poison myself with dinner. An ending worthy of my genius.'

He hesitated, but his stomach growled before he could return it to the others. He looked at the berries in his palm, then chose the smallest and put it in his mouth.

He chewed slowly, alert for any strange taste. It was slightly sour. He swallowed and waited, his eyes fixed on the rest.

He felt nothing, but knew that did not prove they were safe.

'All right... One more.'

He ate the second, then the third, paying close attention to his stomach between berries until his palm was empty. They had not filled him up, but they eased the pangs of hunger enough to let him stop thinking about them for a few moments.

He leaned back against the rock and released a long breath. The air scraped his sore throat, and his hand rose to his neck without thought.

The day's events returned with unwelcome clarity: Barco and his two companions, the chase, the false Hisoka, then the real Hisoka's fingers closing around his neck.

He ran his hand over the marks they had left and pulled it away when the touch hurt.

'What day did Gon take Hisoka's Badge in the original story?'

He tried to put his memories in order. Gon had spent time watching Hisoka and waiting for the right opportunity. Had the theft happened on the third day? The fourth? He was not even certain how many nights had passed before it happened in the anime.

He pressed his fingers to his forehead.

'Wonderful. I remember what the Badge looked like, the chase, and every useless detail, but the actual day decided to slip my mind.'

Perhaps the theft had happened on schedule. Perhaps his presence had forced Gon to act earlier than he should have. Either way, the last thing Tonpa had seen was Hisoka setting off after a child carrying his Badge.

Tonpa sighed.

"I hope you don't die, you idiot."

His concern was not entirely selfless. Gon's death would shatter the future he knew, ruin the trust quest, and perhaps draw the attention of people Tonpa did not even want to think about.

But he could not deny that the boy had saved him.

'He saved me, then led Hisoka away. I'll give him some free advice if he lives.'

His fear slowly turned to anger as he remembered the card raised before his face. He clenched his fist until his aching wrist protested.

That bastard Hisoka had nearly killed him out of curiosity.

One day, when he was stronger, he would repay him for the hand around his neck, the threat, and every second he had spent pretending they were having a normal conversation.

He pictured it for a moment, then looked at his trembling hand.

'I'll do it when the thought of getting close to him again stops being suicide.'

He rested his head against the rock and kept his eyes on the bend leading to the cave entrance.

It would not be tonight.

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 64: Eight Points, No Breakfast

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa had barely slept.

Whenever a branch snapped outside the cave, his eyes opened before he remembered he was still alive. By the time morning light finally crept through the entrance, he was sitting with his back against the rock, one hand resting over the marks Hisoka's fingers had left around his neck.

The fourth day on Zevil Island had begun.

Tonpa had no desire to take part in it.

He held out his hand and retrieved the Badges from Spatial Storage one by one. The metal disks appeared silently in his palm: his own, number 16; his Target Badge, number 303; then Badges 277 and 191.

Eight points.

He put them away again and looked toward the bend leading to the entrance.

'That's enough to pass. Any more risks would be stupidity for its own sake.'

The island was full of people who still needed points. Some were stronger than him. Others were more desperate. Hisoka alone was reason enough to spend the remaining days inside a rock.

Perhaps the magician was no longer looking for him. The last Tonpa had seen of him the day before, he had been heading after Gon. Perhaps his stolen Badge was more interesting than a fat man who had escaped with a child's help.

But "perhaps" was a poor reason to leave the cave.

'I'll stay here until the phase ends. Anyone who wants a Badge can dig through the mountain for it.'

His stomach let out a long growl in the silence.

Tonpa looked down at it.

"Nobody asked you."

He stayed where he was for another hour.

He drank from the shallow basin beneath the crack in the wall until his stomach felt full, at least for the moment. Then he retrieved a bottle of juice from Spatial Storage. The orange liquid shifted inside as he turned it in his hands.

He had an entire bag of the stuff, but the bottles he had kept contained laxatives. Hunger had not changed what was in them, and he had no intention of testing their effects on his exhausted body.

He returned the bottle to storage.

'A whole bag of juice, and I can't drink a drop. Even my supplies can get me eliminated in a humiliating way.'

None of the berries he had eaten the previous night remained. They had barely taken the edge off his hunger, and by morning his stomach was demanding everything those few mouthfuls had failed to provide.

He tried to ignore it. Perhaps he could live on water until the end of the phase. But whenever he settled down, his stomach cramped and brought him back to the same problem.

By midmorning, he had begun thinking about the animals outside the cave.

Before long, he was imagining them cooked.

He rose, cursing the way his resolve always seemed to crumble whenever his stomach got involved. Pain pulled at his side as he straightened, leaving him hunched for a moment before he approached the entrance. He listened for a long time, inspecting the ground and bushes from behind the rocks. He saw no fresh footprints and noticed no movement nearby.

He suppressed his aura with Zetsu, waited for the cold sensation beneath his skin to settle, then stepped outside.

The sensation held for a few steps before fading. He took cover behind a rock and slipped back into Zetsu, then moved on, relying on cover whenever he was in motion.

He had no intention of going far. One small animal, a fire in a hollow that would conceal its light, then back before anyone noticed the rock had given birth to Tonpa for a few minutes.

The first problem became apparent in less than half an hour.

He did not know how to hunt on his own.

The original Tonpa had plenty of experience poisoning juice, watching rookies, and escaping from those who discovered what he had done. Among his memories, Tonpa found nothing that would help him work out which way his breakfast might have gone.

He stopped beside a patch of mud and examined the small tracks pressed into it.

He remembered Karto crouching over similar tracks, pointing at nibbled grass and announcing that a rabbit had passed through. Karto had tracked the animal, driven it out of hiding, then used his knife to steer it toward Tonpa.

Now Tonpa first had to figure out what had left these tracks.

'A rabbit, a large rat, or something that'll make me regret trying to eat it.'

He followed them anyway.

They led him through low bushes until he caught a glimpse of gray near a fallen trunk. A small rabbit was nibbling tender leaves, its ears twitching at every sound.

Tonpa held his breath.

He crouched behind the bushes and slipped back into Zetsu. He stayed still until he was satisfied the animal had not noticed him, then advanced in short steps, choosing where to place each foot before putting his weight on it.

The sensation faded after a few steps. He stopped behind another bush and suppressed his aura again.

Ten meters.

He waited until the rabbit resumed nibbling, then moved.

Seven.

Pain tugged at his thigh as he crouched lower, but he kept going until only about five meters separated him from the animal.

He could split a boulder with his fist. He had escaped Karto and Bodoro, then Hisoka himself. Catching a rabbit should not be the hardest thing he had done that week.

His shoe pressed down on a thin twig.

A faint crack sounded.

The rabbit's ears rose. Its mouth stopped moving.

Tonpa froze with it.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then the rabbit leaped.

'Damn it, my breakfast is getting away!'

Tonpa lunged out of hiding and reached with both hands. Pain seized his side, shortening his stride despite himself. The animal changed direction before he could reach it. His hands closed on empty air, and he slid across the leaves, planting a palm to keep his face from hitting the ground.

Pain shot through his wrist. He snatched his hand back with a stifled gasp and braced himself on one knee while the rabbit kept bounding away.

He refused to give up. With his other hand, he picked up a small stone, judged the animal's path, and threw it.

The stone flew faster than he expected.

It passed over the rabbit and struck the trunk ahead with a sharp crack, scattering bark. The animal changed direction again and vanished into the undergrowth.

Tonpa remained on one knee, his arm extended toward the spot where his breakfast had been.

'If the tree were edible, I'd call that a success.'

He got up and ran a few steps after the rabbit, but found only leaves trembling and then settling. He stopped, bracing his good hand on his knee while holding the other close to his side, and listened to his stomach object to the result.

"It was skinny anyway."

The words came out hoarse. He swallowed with difficulty.

His excuse sounded no more convincing aloud.

He was about to search in another direction when something rustled behind him.

He stiffened.

That was no rabbit. Several branches bent in succession beneath something heavier, followed by a footstep on the dirt.

His hand moved to his neck without his noticing.

'He can't have found me again.'

Tonpa slowly straightened, keeping the trunk between himself and the sound. Another movement came from among the trees, followed by low words he could not make out. A second voice answered from farther away.

At least two people.

They might be Barco and one of his companions. Or applicants looking for easy points. If one of them was Hisoka, knowing how many there were would not help much.

Tonpa took a step away from the route to the cave. He did not want to lead anyone there if he had to run. He bent down and picked up another stone with the hand that hurt less, refusing to look at the bark his previous throw had shattered.

The footsteps drew closer.

A shadow appeared among the bushes to his left. When he glanced toward the gap he had chosen for his escape, he caught another movement there.

His grip tightened around the stone.

He turned toward the nearer figure and raised his arm, but stopped before he could throw.

A lock of blond hair appeared between the leaves, followed by a familiar face above a blue collar embroidered with gold.

Tonpa's eyes widened.

'Kurapika?'

His arm remained raised as the young man stepped out of the bushes, his eyes settling on the stone.

Leaves parted at the other gap. A tall man in a suit emerged, holding a briefcase in front of his chest as though ready to block a blow with it.

Tonpa lowered the stone slightly.

'Leorio too?'

Leorio's gaze moved from the stone to his face. His eyes widened for a moment before his brows drew together.

"Tonpa?"

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 65: A Speech That Worked Too Well

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa slowly lowered his hand, the stone still held between his fingers.

Kurapika continued watching him warily, while Leorio kept his briefcase raised in front of his chest.

"You were about to throw that at us," Leorio said.

"I heard something in the bushes. I didn't know it was you."

Kurapika examined his dirty clothes and the bruises on his face.

"Looks like you've run into more than wildlife."

Tonpa did not answer immediately. His gaze passed over their shoulders to the trees behind them, searching for any further movement. He had not expected to find them here, but his initial surprise soon gave way to a more useful thought.

He had gone looking for food and found two fresh opportunities for deception.

He tossed the stone aside and let his expression soften.

"You two are working together?"

Leorio lowered his briefcase.

"We ran into each other after the phase started and decided to team up."

Kurapika added, "Neither of us has our Target Badge yet. It's safer to search together."

One corner of Tonpa's mouth lifted.

"Good decision. This island isn't a place to wander around alone."

Unfortunately, that was his honest opinion, so he expected no reward for it.

He considered his next question before asking cautiously, "What about Hisoka? Have you run into him?"

Leorio shook his head.

"Thankfully, no. We haven't seen him since the phase began."

Kurapika confirmed it with a small nod.

Tonpa's smile faltered for a fraction of a second.

In the events he remembered, the two of them were supposed to encounter Hisoka before Gon managed to steal his Badge. But Gon had taken it yesterday, and Kurapika and Leorio had not met the magician at all.

The encounter might still happen, but the order he remembered had already changed.

When he realized Gon had drawn Hisoka's number, he had thought some events were still following their original course. Now Gon had the Badge, but what should have happened before that had never occurred.

Every new difference made his knowledge of this world a little less useful. If events kept diverging, his knowledge of the future would become a collection of memories of things that were under no obligation to happen.

'Wonderful. My knowledge of the future has gone from a map to a suggestion.'

He buried his frustration beneath a relieved smile and let out a breath, as though their answer had lifted a weight from his chest.

"Thank goodness. I was worried one of you might have run into him. I'm glad you're both all right."

Kurapika and Leorio exchanged a brief glance.

Leorio looked back at him.

"You were worried about us?"

Tonpa lowered his eyes slightly.

"After everything we've been through, it would be strange if I wasn't."

Ding!

The System's chime rang inside his head before the windows appeared.

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +5]

[Experience Points +5]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +5]

[Experience Points +5]

Tonpa dismissed the notifications, maintaining his calm smile.

'Ten points for a worried sigh. If the System paid for genuine feelings, I'd stay broke.'

His stomach gave a quiet growl.

Leorio's eyes dropped to his belly before Tonpa could pretend the sound had come from some distant animal.

He cleared his throat. Pain scraped through it, forcing him to swallow before asking, "Do you have anything left to eat?"

Kurapika answered before he had to explain just how badly he needed food.

"We caught a wild rabbit a few hours ago and roasted it. We kept the leftovers."

Tonpa's head lifted at the word "rabbit."

'Even the food I failed to catch found its way to me in the end.'

He gestured toward the rocky rise.

"I found a cave nearby. We can talk there instead of standing out in the open."

He led them cautiously back to the cave. Kurapika inspected the entrance before stepping inside, while Leorio kept looking around as though he expected the rightful occupant to appear and demand that they leave.

They went around the bend and sat near the wall. Kurapika took a bundle of broad leaves tied with string from his bag. When he opened it, Tonpa caught the smoky scent clinging to the pieces of roasted rabbit.

He took a piece and tried to eat slowly enough to preserve what remained of his dignity. But he attempted to swallow a mouthful his sore throat could not handle, forcing him to stop and close his eyes until the pain passed.

"Slow down," Leorio said. "We don't want you surviving the other applicants just to choke on a rabbit bone."

Tonpa swallowed carefully, then looked at the meat.

"I'm not giving it a last-minute victory."

He drank a little water from the shallow basin and returned to his spot. This time, he took smaller bites, though his hand reached for a second piece as soon as the first was gone. Once the cramps in his stomach eased, he leaned against the wall and let his shoulders relax.

Kurapika asked, "Have you seen Gon or Killua since we arrived?"

Tonpa's hand stopped beside the bundle.

"I haven't seen Killua. As for Gon…"

Both of them looked up.

Tonpa let the silence settle for a moment before continuing.

"I ran into Hisoka yesterday. He ambushed me and caught me before I could get away."

He did not mention that he had been calling for the magician beforehand, or that borrowing Hisoka's face had saved him from the first chase. He raised a hand to his neck. Leorio's eyes followed the movement and stopped on the finger marks.

His expression hardened.

"What happened?"

"Gon stepped in and hit him with the weight on his fishing line. He could have stayed hidden, but he put himself in danger to give me a chance to escape."

Tonpa left the stolen Badge out of the story. He wanted them picturing Gon saving him, not stealing a Badge worth three points.

He lowered his gaze to the piece of meat in his hand.

"The last thing I saw was Hisoka heading after him. I searched until dark, but I couldn't find him."

'I was looking for the cave. A minor detail they don't need.'

Leorio started to rise.

"Hisoka was chasing him?!"

"I saw him head in the same direction. I don't know what happened after that."

That part was true. He remembered Hisoka's smile before the magician vanished between the trees, and his fingers tightened around the meat without his noticing.

Kurapika asked, "And did you go out this morning to look for Gon?"

Tonpa raised his eyes.

Kurapika's tone was not accusatory, but his gaze moved to the food in Tonpa's hand, then returned to his face.

'Of course. You had to ask that now.'

He relaxed his fingers and set the piece down on the leaves.

"I went out to find something to eat first. I barely made it back here yesterday, and I couldn't keep searching in the dark. If I collapse out there, I'll be the one who needs rescuing."

Kurapika watched him for another moment. Tonpa returned his hand to his knee so neither of them would notice he had almost reached for the food again.

His answer explained the delay, but it had not yet given him what he wanted from the conversation.

He let his shoulders sag.

"I spent years treating the other applicants like obstacles. Gon didn't owe me anything, but he stepped in when he saw Hisoka holding me."

His voice came out rough. He did not have to fake that; he merely lowered it a little.

"I can't say I've changed, then hide here while the first person who treated me like a friend could be in danger."

He looked at them both before adding, "I'll go back and look for him. I can't stay here without knowing what happened to him."

'One more sentence, and I'll owe friendship itself an apology.'

Silence settled over the cave.

Ding!

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

Tonpa dismissed the windows.

Another twenty points. He kept his eyes lowered, waiting for the smile threatening to appear to subside. He knew he should stop talking now. He had said enough.

Kurapika stood.

"We'll look for him together."

Tonpa raised his head.

Leorio got up too, taking his briefcase.

"We're not leaving him to face Hisoka alone."

Tonpa looked at them, then at the safe spot behind him.

He could have objected, if he had not just spent the past minute explaining why he could not stay there.

Kurapika gathered the remaining meat and tied the bundle shut again, while Leorio waited near the bend leading to the entrance.

Neither seemed to be waiting for another speech.

Tonpa rose slowly, bracing himself against the wall until his legs were steady.

"All right. Let's go."

'Thirty points to leave a safe cave and walk willingly toward Hisoka.'

He sighed as he followed them outside.

'The System isn't the only one with a talent for bad deals.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 66: Selective Memory

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

The three of them moved away from the cave, with Kurapika taking the lead and Leorio following behind, pushing branches aside with his briefcase. Tonpa brought up the rear, watching the damp ground and cursing the speech that had dragged him out of his safe hiding place.

'I should have stopped at asking for food. Nobody puts together a rescue team over an empty stomach.'

They followed the stream in the direction Tonpa had indicated. Kurapika stopped at every muddy patch to check for tracks, while Leorio called Gon's name twice before Kurapika asked him to keep his voice down.

Leorio protested.

"How's he supposed to find us if he can't hear us?"

"And if Hisoka is nearby, he'll hear you too."

Leorio closed his mouth and looked between the trees, as though mentioning the name might be enough to summon its owner.

They searched for a while without finding any clear sign of Gon. Leorio turned to Kurapika.

"We're looking for Gon, and we haven't even found the two Badges we need."

Tonpa glanced between them.

"What are your target numbers? I might have run into one of them."

Kurapika gave him a wary look.

"Why didn't you ask us earlier?"

"I was busy eating the first food I'd found since yesterday."

Kurapika watched him for a moment, then answered without commenting on the excuse.

"My target is the applicant wearing Badge 277."

Tonpa raised his eyebrows just enough to suggest the number had meant nothing to him until now.

'277. Just as I thought.'

Kurapika continued.

"I found him early in the phase. A broad-chested man carrying a knife. I tried to take his Badge, but he was a better fighter than I expected."

"He got away from you?" Leorio asked.

Kurapika's eyes narrowed slightly.

"I wounded him in the thigh. He used the trees and rocks to break my line of sight, then disappeared before I could catch up. I looked for him afterward, but couldn't find his trail."

Tonpa nodded slowly. Kurapika had said nothing about Karto losing his Badge, and he was still looking for him.

Fine. Tonpa was under no obligation to bring him up to date just yet.

"That leg injury will slow him down," he said. "He'll turn up sooner or later."

Kurapika did not look entirely convinced, but he returned his attention to the path.

Tonpa turned to Leorio.

"And you?"

Leorio took his target card out of his pocket.

"Badge 246. The problem is, I don't know who has it. I've seen hundreds of faces and numbers during this exam. I didn't expect to have to memorize all of them."

Tonpa paused for a moment.

"Ponzu."

Leorio blinked.

"Who?"

"The girl with the round hat. Her number is 246."

Leorio looked at the card, then back at him.

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

"How did you remember her number?"

Tonpa straightened slightly and answered in a calm voice, as though there were nothing remotely surprising about it.

"I have a good memory for faces. Once I see a face and a number together, I never forget either."

Kurapika stared at him.

"But you nearly threw a rock at us a little while ago."

"A memory for faces doesn't let me see through bushes."

Leorio let out a small snort, his attempt to suppress a laugh giving way to a smile.

"Maybe you are useful sometimes."

"I try to keep it a surprise."

Leorio returned his target card to his pocket. He now had a name and a face to look for instead of a number that meant nothing to him.

Ding!

A window appeared at the edge of Tonpa's vision.

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +4]

[Experience Points +4]

Tonpa waited a moment, but no notification bearing Kurapika's name appeared.

'Leorio believed me. Kurapika, on the other hand, still seems to treat every sentence out of my mouth like an open bottle of juice.'

His gaze lingered on the four points before he dismissed the window.

'Even the System didn't think that lie deserved a nice round number.'

Before they could resume walking, Kurapika asked:

"What about your target?"

Tonpa looked up. Kurapika had stopped, while Leorio's hand remained beside the pocket holding his target card. Both waited without saying anything more.

'Right. My turn to show them what I've got.'

He reached inside his jacket and summoned the card bearing number 303 between his fingers before drawing it out.

"This is his number."

Leorio leaned closer to check it. Kurapika's gaze moved from the card to Tonpa's face.

"Have you found him?"

"I've taken his Badge too."

Leorio's hand stopped at the edge of his pocket.

"You already got it?"

Tonpa allowed himself a small smile and slipped the card back inside his jacket. He summoned the Badge into his palm and brought it out, holding it by the rim so they could see the number clearly.

Leorio stared at the metal disk. Kurapika's eyebrows rose slightly, and he stepped closer to examine it.

"I got lucky," Tonpa said. "Found him early, and he wasn't as strong as I'd expected. I waited for an opening and stole his Badge."

'I wore myself out looking for him, then discovered he knew how to throw a punch. Details that would spoil the story.'

Leorio's eyes moved between the Badge and Tonpa's face.

"Damn, you're lucky. We haven't even found Ponzu, and you're already done with your target?"

Tonpa shrugged. The movement sent pain through his side, nearly ruining his smile.

Kurapika's eyes lingered on the movement, then shifted to Tonpa's torn clothes and the bruise along his jaw.

"And he wasn't strong?"

"I said he wasn't as strong as I'd expected."

Tonpa slipped the Badge inside his jacket and returned it to Spatial Storage before they could spend too long looking at it.

Kurapika asked:

"And your own Badge?"

"Still have it."

Leorio let out a long breath.

"Six points. Of course."

'Eight, actually. But I don't want to ruin your morning any further.'

Tonpa settled for a modest smile. Badge 277 deserved a separate conversation, at a time of his choosing.

Leorio pushed a branch out of his way with an impatient gesture.

"Do you know where we can find Ponzu?"

"I remember her face. I can't track her from a distance."

Some of the irritation returned to Leorio's face, but Tonpa had already gotten what he wanted.

They reached a spot where the stream split around a small rise, with three paths branching off through the trees ahead. Tonpa stopped and studied the different directions.

Searching for Gon this way could take all day. Kurapika's confirmation about number 277, however, had given Tonpa other ideas about how to spend his time.

One corner of his mouth lifted. He lowered his head before either of them could notice.

"Staying together is slowing us down," he said. "There are three of us covering the same path."

Kurapika reminded him:

"You said yourself that wandering around alone was dangerous."

"It still is. But we won't find Gon any faster if we all look behind the same tree."

He pointed toward the three paths.

"Let's spread out a little. We each take a direction and meet back at the cave in two hours."

Leorio folded his arms.

"And what if Gon needs help?"

"Call us. Don't face Hisoka alone."

Kurapika looked at the paths, then at the sun's position between the branches. His brow remained furrowed when he turned back to them.

"We stay close enough to hear one another call. No wandering off to look for your Target Badge."

Tonpa nodded.

"We're only looking for Gon."

"And two hours at most," Kurapika added. "Then we return to the cave. Nobody gets into an unnecessary fight."

Leorio chose the path beside the stream.

"Maybe we'll run into Ponzu too."

Kurapika gave him a look.

Leorio raised a hand.

"I said run into her. I heard you."

Kurapika headed east, while Tonpa took the path sloping north.

Tonpa kept walking until their footsteps grew faint and then disappeared. He sheltered behind a rock and stopped, listening to the forest. He tried to suppress his aura with Zetsu, waiting until the familiar sensation began to settle.

When he moved again, he managed to maintain it for only a few steps.

He did not stop to restore it. Instead, he changed course among the rocks, using them to conceal himself from the path he had left.

He had no intention of wasting two hours searching for Gon.

Tonpa stopped behind a thick trunk and looked in the direction Kurapika had taken. The false concern slipped from his face, replaced by a slow smile he would never have shown in front of either of them.

He finally had confirmation that the Badge he had kept was exactly what Kurapika needed.

Now he had to choose the best way to offer it.

"All right," he murmured. "Let's start taming Kurapika."



_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 67: The Worst Part of the Plan

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa moved away from the path Kurapika had taken, his smile staying with him until he reached a patch of ground screened from the nearby trails by rocks and trees.

Then it vanished.

He bent down and picked up a jagged stone with the hand that hurt less, then stared at it for a long time.

The idea had sounded good when it involved nothing more than tearing his clothes and staggering back. The problem was that Leorio had seen his condition before they split up. The same bruises and dried blood, accompanied by a little more torn fabric, might not convince him that anything new had happened.

Tonpa looked at the mark his con against Karto had left on his forearm.

Once should have been enough.

'A plan that starts with hurting myself should have been rejected at the proposal stage.'

He raised the stone toward his arm, but his hand stopped before the edge touched his skin. He tried adjusting his grip, only for a twinge in his wrist to make him change it back.

"Just a shallow cut."

The words scraped out of his throat. Saying them aloud did not make it any better.

He ended his hesitation with one quick movement.

Pain flared through his arm, and beads of blood appeared along an uneven scratch. He clenched his teeth and stared at the stone as though it had betrayed him, rather than being the only thing that had done exactly what he wanted.

'Wonderful. I've been viciously attacked by my own decisions.'

He added only two smaller marks around the scratch, then threw the stone away. He gripped his sleeve to widen the tear, but his wrist protested at the first tug. He paused, exhaled through his teeth, and used the edge of a rock to wear through the fabric around the spot instead.

When he tried to tear the section near his shoulder, pain pulled at his side.

He lowered his arm.

He did not need to inflict every injury himself. Other people had done most of the work yesterday.

He sat in the dirt, then leaned over and rolled through it with a degree of caution entirely unsuited to the attack he intended to invent. Dust worked its way into his hair and clung to his face and damp clothes. He rose onto one knee, shook the dirt from his hand, and looked at his arm.

He left the dirt on the skin around the scratches, keeping it away from the wet blood.

He had no intention of turning the performance into another real problem.

Tonpa bent over a shallow pool between the rocks. A dirty face and dust-filled hair looked back at him. He examined his torn sleeve, then the rest of his clothes.

They looked as though someone had dragged him across half the island. The bruises from yesterday's chase needed no improvement.

He sat behind a rock and rested his arm on his thigh.

He had to wait. Returning too soon would give him a fresh wound, but it would not give his story enough time to have happened.

He relaxed his shoulders and tried to slip into Zetsu. The sensation did not respond immediately. Whenever he nearly managed to hold it, the pain in his arm pulled his attention away. He waited for his breathing to settle, then tried again.

The flow of aura escaping his body gradually diminished, and the familiar chill spread beneath his skin.

His body did not disappear. Neither did the insects that had decided his leg was a convenient place to land. He remained still, watching the gap between two rocks and restoring Zetsu whenever a sudden movement or a moment's distraction broke it.

He spent nearly an hour that way.

When he judged that the meeting time was approaching, he checked the sun's position and stood. Preparing his appearance and reaching this spot had taken time too. He could not afford to sit around any longer.

The most humiliating part of the plan remained.

He ran.

He did not head straight for the cave. He circled through the trees, climbed a small slope, then doubled back across uneven ground. He wanted real sweat, ragged breathing, and legs that would not need reminding how to pretend to tremble.

He got them sooner than he wanted.

Pain seized his side and shortened his stride. He pressed his palm beneath his ribs and kept going until every breath scraped through his throat.

'I have a magical System, two absurd Skills, and Spatial Storage... and the best way to fool someone is still to run until I nearly die.'

He slowed before reaching the exposed ground in front of the cave. He did not want them to hear him panting before he chose the moment to appear.

Taking cover behind a trunk, he waited until he could close his mouth and breathe reasonably quietly. The wind came from the direction of the cave, stirring the leaves toward him. He picked his way between the trees, stopping whenever he could not see a clear place to put his foot.

He reached the bushes opposite the entrance and crouched behind them.

Once he was still, he slipped back into Zetsu.

Kurapika stood near the cave, watching the northern path. Leorio paced impatiently in front of the entrance.

"It's been two hours," Leorio said. "He should be here by now."

Kurapika answered:

"Maybe he had to change his route. We'll give him a few more minutes."

Something moved in the darkness of the entrance.

Spikes of black hair appeared, followed by a familiar green jacket.

Tonpa fixed his eyes on the newcomer and nearly raised his head above the leaves.

'Gon?'

The boy walked without any visible limp. Tonpa could see some dirt and scratches, but nothing that justified the worry he had been carrying since yesterday.

He slowly let the air escape through his nose.

Gon was alive. And he did not look as though he had spent the night at Hisoka's mercy.

The boy stood beside Kurapika and looked toward the trees.

"I can track his scent if we find somewhere he's been."

Tonpa's relief ended there.

He stayed still, watching Gon's face through the leaves. He had no idea how the boy had ended up with the others, but he was not prepared for Gon to follow his scent to a man sitting behind a bush, waiting for a chance to collapse in front of him.

No one turned toward his hiding place.

The wind passed over his head, and Gon continued watching the path beside Kurapika.

Tonpa relaxed a little. The boy's presence gave his performance an extra audience member, provided the show did not begin with Tonpa being discovered here.

Ding!

The chime cut through his concentration. He pulled his arm close to his body before it could brush against the branches.

[Zetsu Mastery Increased.]

[Zetsu Mastery: 1% → 2%]

Tonpa stared at the message.

'I spent an hour hiding from my allies, and the System counted it as training.'

He dismissed the window and took one last look toward the entrance. All three remained focused on the northern path.

He needed to leave this side and return from somewhere better suited to his escape scene.

He slowly moved one foot backward, expecting Zetsu to break as usual.

It did not.

He planted his foot, shifted his weight onto it, and brought the other after it. The chill beneath his skin remained.

'Wait...'

He began counting in his head as he retreated with light steps between the trunk and the bushes. He did not hurry or let his attention stray from the sensation that, only minutes earlier, he had been losing after a few steps.

He reached roughly ten before the chill began to fade. He stopped behind the trunk before turning.

About ten seconds while moving with light, careful steps.

It was not enough to cross the forest, but it was more than he had managed a few minutes ago.

His smile nearly returned. Then Leorio's voice from the cave reminded him why he was here.

He left further testing for another time and moved away, using the trunks for cover until the bushes blocked the entrance completely. The rough fabric rubbed against the scratch on his arm as he adjusted his sleeve, staining it with fresh blood.

He looked at it, then at the route he would emerge from.

He drew a trembling breath.

And ran toward the cave.

He crashed noisily through the branches, letting his feet strike the dry leaves instead of avoiding them. Pain stung his arm when his sleeve caught on a branch. He tore it free with a quiet curse.

This time, he did not need to pretend it hurt.

By the time he broke out of the trees, all three faces had turned toward him.

Gon's eyes widened.

"Tonpa!"

Leorio stopped moving. Kurapika stepped forward and drew his weapon, looking at the trees behind Tonpa.

Tonpa let his next step falter. He mixed a groan into his genuine panting and reached toward them as though he could barely see them.

"Stay back..."

The warning came out hoarse.

Gon reached him first.

"What happened?"

Tonpa tried to answer, then let his knees buckle. Gon caught him before he hit the ground, and Leorio arrived to support him from the other side.

Tonpa let his head droop and closed his eyes.

"Tonpa! Can you hear me?"

He did not answer.

He felt one arm supporting his back and another sliding beneath his legs. Pain gripped his side as they lifted him, and his hand nearly clutched at someone's clothes. He let it hang limp instead.

Kurapika's voice came from behind them.

"Take him inside. I'll make sure no one's followed him."

They carried him forward. The light behind his eyelids dimmed as they passed through the entrance. He heard water again, then felt the cold ground beneath his back as they laid him beside the basin.

Leorio's fingers settled against his neck.

Tonpa fought the urge to push them away from the tender spot.

'Not now.'

Leorio lifted one of his eyelids. Light flooded in, along with part of Leorio's face close to his own. Tonpa kept his gaze fixed instead of following the movement, until Leorio let the eyelid close.

"His pulse is fast," Leorio said. "The cut's bleeding, but it isn't deep."

Tonpa heard water moving, then felt it touch his arm. Pain flared, and he nearly pulled away, but let the reaction pass as a brief tremor.

Leorio wrapped something soft around the wound and pulled the end tight.

Footsteps approached from the entrance and stopped nearby.

"I didn't see anyone behind him," Kurapika said.

Fabric rustled near Tonpa's head. Gon's voice came from beside him, closer this time.

"Was it Hisoka?"

"Wait until he wakes up. We don't know what happened."

Ding!

The System's notification chimed inside Tonpa's head while he remained motionless.

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

'Ninety points.'

His face remained still.

'Finally, a payout that gives pain its due.'

He waited a little longer, then moved his fingers and slowly opened his eyes. He let his unfocused gaze drift between the faces before stopping on Gon.

His eyes widened.

"Gon?"

He raised his unbandaged hand and gripped the boy's arm.

"Are you all right? Did Hisoka do anything to you?"

Gon nodded quickly.

"I'm fine. But who did this to you?"

Leorio moved closer, while Kurapika fixed his eyes on Tonpa.

"What happened in the forest?"

Tonpa let his breathing settle a little, keeping the weakness in his expression.

Inwardly, though, he was grinning.

The audience was assembled, and they had believed the performance.

It was time for the story.

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 68: A One-Point Investment

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa kept his hand on Gon's arm and let relief slowly spread across his face.

"Thank goodness you're all right."

His voice was weak, but it carried enough emotion to earn a reassuring smile from Gon.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me."

Then the boy looked at the bandage around Tonpa's arm.

"But who did this to you?"

Leorio waited for an answer with his arms folded. Kurapika remained close to them, occasionally glancing toward the bend leading to the entrance.

Tonpa's eyes moved between the three faces.

The concern was there. The injury was convincing. And the audience had gathered in the right place.

Time to sell the story.

"When we split up..." he began wearily, then paused as though gathering his thoughts required effort. "I kept looking for Gon along the northern path. I didn't find him, but I found someone else."

Kurapika asked:

"Who?"

Tonpa fixed his eyes on him.

"The man with Badge 277."

Kurapika's posture changed at once. His back straightened, and his eyes dropped to Tonpa's torn clothes.

Leorio looked between them.

"Kurapika's target?"

Tonpa nodded.

He released Gon's arm and slipped his hand beneath the torn part of his shirt. The fabric concealed his fingers as he summoned the metal disk from Spatial Storage. Then he slowly withdrew his hand.

The Badge rested in his palm, the number 277 clearly visible.

Kurapika went still, his eyes fixed on it.

Gon leaned so close that his face nearly touched Tonpa's hand.

"It really is his Target Badge!"

Leorio looked from the number to Tonpa, as though his injuries suddenly demanded a different explanation.

Tonpa held the Badge out to Kurapika.

"Take it."

Kurapika did not move.

His eyes remained on the Badge, but the suspicion had not left his face.

"How did you get it?"

Tonpa lowered his hand slightly, as though its weight had become a burden.

"I saw him moving through the trees with a limp. He matched your description: broad chest, carrying a knife. At first, I thought about avoiding him."

He paused and glanced at the bandage.

"That would have been the smarter decision."

Leorio sat down in front of him.

"So what did you do?"

Before Tonpa could answer, Kurapika looked up from the Badge.

"We agreed that no one would get sidetracked by Badges or get into an unnecessary fight."

Tonpa lowered his gaze.

"I know."

He let the words settle for a moment before looking back at him.

"But then I remembered that it was your Target Badge. I said I wanted to make things up to you all and atone for what I'd done in previous exams. And I hadn't done anything for you in particular yet."

He ran his thumb along the edge of the metal disk.

"I thought this might be my chance."

Kurapika's expression remained still, but some of the hardness left his gaze.

Tonpa continued.

"I approached him from behind. Once I was beside him, I reached for the Badge pinned to his chest. I almost had it, but he noticed me and turned to stab me. I pulled away from the blade. It tore my sleeve instead of cutting my arm."

His fingers brushed the edge of the bandage.

"His injured leg was slowing him down. When he tried to lunge at me again, he lost his balance for a moment. I took the Badge."

Gon asked:

"And your injuries?"

Tonpa let his shoulder sag.

"Taking the Badge was the easy part. Getting away with it was the problem."

He gently pressed his hand against his side and found the pain ready to serve the story.

"He hit me in my injured side, then shoved me toward the rocks. My arm struck them when I tried to keep myself from falling."

He looked at the frayed sleeve around the bandage.

"I thought I'd lose the Badge before I got away, but I was faster than him. His leg wouldn't let him chase me for long."

The lie rested on enough truth to hold it up. Kurapika knew how strong the owner of Badge 277 was, and he knew the man had a thigh wound. The fresh blood, torn sleeve, and breathlessness Tonpa had returned with gave the invented parts what they needed to look convincing.

Leorio slapped the ground.

"You faced him alone for a Badge that wasn't even your target? Have you lost your mind?"

Tonpa gave him a tired smile.

"To me, the Badge is worth one point. To Kurapika, it's worth three."

He looked down at the metal disk in his palm.

"If I keep it, I'll have taken all those hits for one point. Giving it to him makes my decision a little less stupid."

Leorio let out an angry breath but did not answer immediately.

Gon, meanwhile, watched Tonpa with a smile that gradually widened.

"You were looking for me, and you helped Kurapika too."

Tonpa bowed his head as though the praise embarrassed him.

'I hid from you, cut myself, then came back to sell you a Badge I stole two days ago.'

None of them needed to hear the short version.

Ding!

The System's chime cut through his thoughts, and messages appeared before him.

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +30]

[Experience Points +30]

[Total Nen Points: 380]

[Experience Points: 2,020/5,400]

Tonpa dismissed the windows before the points could change his expression.

Another ninety points for a battle that had never happened and a sacrifice that had cost him nothing important.

'They really were moved.'

He nearly felt insulted on their behalf. Then he remembered that their gullibility now formed part of his balance and forgave them.

He held out his hand again.

This time, Kurapika reached out and took the Badge.

He turned it between his fingers, checked the number, and remained silent for several seconds. By keeping his own Badge and this one, he now had all the points he needed to pass.

At last, he looked up.

"You risked being eliminated from the exam just to give me this."

Tonpa nodded slowly.

"I didn't get this far on my own. Consider it a small payment toward an old debt."

Kurapika closed his fingers around the Badge.

"Thank you, Tonpa."

Ding!

The chime sounded before Tonpa could enjoy the words.

[Kurapika's Trust: 12% → 19%]

[Leorio's Trust: 16% → 20%]

[Gon Freecss's Trust: 20% → 30%]

Tonpa stared at the windows.

He had expected Kurapika's Trust to rise. This was his Target Badge, worth half the points he needed to pass. But he had not expected Leorio to reach twenty percent, or Gon's Trust to jump by ten full percentage points.

Thirty percent.

The boy now trusted him more than Tonpa had trusted anyone in his previous life.

He dismissed the notifications and maintained his weary expression, grinning inwardly.

Badge 277 had never been a real sacrifice. It was worth only one point to him. Even after handing it over, he still had seven—more than he needed to pass.

But he had presented it to Kurapika wrapped in blood, danger, and a story of atonement.

For the price of a single point, he had bought ninety Nen Points, ninety Experience Points, and enough Trust to nearly fulfill the hardest condition of his mission.

He needed just one more percentage point to meet the Trust requirement for Kurapika.

Tonpa looked at the Badge enclosed in Kurapika's fist.

'Taming you is cheaper than I expected.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 69: A Selective Future

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa kept watching Kurapika, who was still holding Badge 277, then rested his head against the wall and released a weary breath.

Gon's eyes were still moving between his face and the bandage.

"I'll recover. Leorio said the cut wasn't deep."

He shifted his arm slightly, then let it rest on his thigh as concern returned to his face.

"But what happened to you after we split up? The last thing I saw was Hisoka going after you."

Gon shifted slightly where he sat across from him.

"I managed to get his Badge."

Tonpa had seen it swinging near the boy's hand during their escape. What he did not know was how the chase had ended—or whether Gon still had it.

His gaze moved to Gon's clothes.

The boy took out the metal disk bearing the number 44.

Tonpa's fingers tightened slightly against his thigh.

He still had it.

"I hooked it with my fishing line while he was distracted by you," Gon said. "I thought I'd gotten far enough away, but another applicant had been following me."

His smile faded a little.

"My Badge was his target. After I took Hisoka's, he hit me with a small dart coated in a poison that paralyzed me."

Leorio straightened.

"You were poisoned?!"

"I'm fine now. It wasn't deadly, but I couldn't move."

Kurapika asked, "What happened to the man?"

"Hisoka showed up and killed him."

Silence settled over them for a moment.

Tonpa lowered his gaze to the Badge, waiting for the rest.

"The man had taken both my Badge and Hisoka's," Gon continued. "After Hisoka killed him, he gave them back to me."

He took out his own Badge and placed it beside the one bearing the number 44.

"But he didn't take his back."

Gon pointed to the mark the punch had left on his face.

"He hit me and said I could return it when I was strong enough to hit him back."

Leorio clenched his fist.

"That lunatic…"

Tonpa kept staring at the number 44, trying to put what he had heard in order.

Events had unfolded almost exactly as he remembered. Gon had stolen the Badge, the applicant hunting him had paralyzed him, and Hisoka had appeared, killed the man, and left Gon with his Badge.

But Hisoka's encounter with Kurapika and Leorio had not happened before any of that. The number of applicants who had passed had changed. The draw had changed. People who had never been there before had appeared. Yet some events had kept their original order, as though nothing had touched them.

'Has the future changed or not? It would be nice if it made up its mind.'

He did not know whether some events were harder to change than others, or whether the changes simply had not reached them yet. Every possible answer made his knowledge less reliable.

He concealed his frustration beneath a look of remorse.

"So you really were in danger."

Gon looked at him.

Tonpa let his eyes drop to the bandage.

"I tried to catch up with you both, but I couldn't match your speed. I thought I could circle around and cut across your path from the other side."

He paused, as though the next admission were harder to make.

"When I got there, no one was around. I'd lost both of you."

The truth was less heroic. He had used his Skill on Hisoka, punched him, and run as fast as he could in a direction that took him away from them both.

'There really was a detour. It just went all the way to my cave.'

He continued quietly.

"I searched until dark, but I couldn't find you. In the end, I came back to the cave because I didn't have the strength to keep going."

Kurapika and Leorio had already heard about his search until dark. The attempt to catch up with Hisoka and intercept him to save Gon was a new addition to the performance.

Gon moved a little closer.

"You didn't have to put yourself in danger. I managed to get away."

Tonpa gave him a weak smile.

"I didn't know that. I thought you'd drawn Hisoka away to save me, and I couldn't even reach you when you needed help."

Gon placed a hand on his uninjured shoulder.

"What matters is that we both made it."

Kurapika nodded slowly. Even Leorio, who had objected to Tonpa confronting the owner of Badge 277 just a short while ago, did not interrupt this time.

Ding!

The System's chime sounded before the messages appeared.

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +15]

[Experience Points +15]

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +15]

[Experience Points +15]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +15]

[Experience Points +15]

[Total Nen Points: 425]

[Experience Points: 2,065/5,400]

Tonpa dismissed the windows, maintaining his remorseful expression.

'Forty-five points for a detour I never took.'

He had to admit that the imaginary route had earned him a better return than the one he had actually run.

He raised his head and looked at Gon's two Badges, then at Badge 277 in Kurapika's hand.

"What matters is that you're both all right, and you both have the points you need."

His gaze moved between their faces.

"What about Killua? Has anyone seen him?"

Gon shook his head.

"I haven't seen him since we split up at the start of the Phase."

"We haven't run into him either," Kurapika said. "But he's better at protecting himself than most people here."

The feigned concern remained on Tonpa's face.

"We'll keep an eye out for any sign of him."

Then he looked at Leorio.

He was the only one among them who had not obtained his Target Badge.

"That leaves Ponzu."

Leorio folded his arms.

"Don't tell me you're going out to look for her when you can barely sit up."

Tonpa almost let his shoulders sag further, then stopped himself.

The first part of his plan had worked a little too well. If he kept acting like a man who needed help rolling onto his side, he would never convince them he could search for anyone.

He pressed the palm that hurt less against the ground and used the wall to help himself stand. Pain pulled at his side, forcing him to pause before he could straighten. This time, he did not add a tremor to his legs.

Gon immediately rose and moved closer.

"You can stay here and rest. We'll look for her."

Tonpa shook his head.

"I can walk. The island is large, and Leorio needs her Badge. I might notice something the rest of you miss."

"And we might end up carrying you before we find anything," Leorio snapped.

"I won't chase anyone. I'll stay with you."

He took one short step, then another. The pain remained, but this time he did not need to hold on to the wall.

Kurapika watched him move before speaking.

"If you come with us, we won't split up again. And if you can't keep walking, tell us immediately."

Tonpa nodded.

"Then make sure I don't get injured again."

Leorio stared at him for a moment, as though waiting for the rest of the joke.

Tonpa added nothing. He merely adjusted his stance slowly and concealed his satisfaction.

Staying in the cave would be more comfortable, but it would leave Kurapika's Trust at nineteen percent and separate Tonpa from the three best sources of protection and points on the island.

'Resting doesn't raise Trust.'

He took another step away from the wall, leaving room for Gon to walk beside him.

'Besides, looking for Ponzu becomes much less dangerous when three other people do it for me.'

Gon tucked both Badges back into his clothes. Leorio picked up his briefcase, muttering indistinct objections, while Kurapika headed toward the entrance to check the area. Gon stayed beside Tonpa and offered a hand when he had to step over a rocky protrusion in the floor.

The four of them left the cave to search for the last target.

Once again, Tonpa was leaving his safe hiding place.

At least this time, he was surrounded by people who trusted him far more than they should.



_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 70: The Benefits of Bad Habits

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

As they descended the rocky path outside the cave, pain pulled at Tonpa's side when he reached for a lower foothold. His step fell short, and his foot slipped off the edge of a small rock.

He pitched sideways. Gon caught his arm and helped him regain his balance.

"That's enough," Leorio snapped. "Go back to the cave."

Tonpa slowly straightened, leaning on Gon's shoulder for another second before stepping away.

"I'm fine."

"You nearly fell over a flat rock."

Tonpa looked down at it.

"It was steeper on this side."

Leorio did not look where he pointed.

"You won't be any help if we have to carry you again. Stay here and rest. We'll look for Ponzu."

Kurapika nodded.

"The cut isn't serious, but you're exhausted. Having you with us right now could make things more dangerous."

Their reasoning was sound, which meant refusing would require a better performance.

Tonpa lowered his eyes, then looked at Leorio's briefcase.

"You still haven't found your Target Badge."

Leorio frowned.

"What does that have to do with your injury?"

"You shared your food with me, helped carry me, and treated my wound. I'm not going back to the cave while you're all taking risks to find your target."

He tried to stand straighter, allowing the genuine pain in his side to show on his face.

"I won't rest until I've helped you find her."

Leorio opened his mouth, but the objection did not come immediately. He looked at the bandage around Tonpa's arm, then turned his eyes toward the path.

Gon smiled as though Tonpa had said the most natural thing in the world.

Kurapika studied him in silence. His brow remained furrowed, but he did not tell him to return to the cave again.

Ding!

The System's chime sounded before the windows appeared.

[Leorio's Trust: 20% → 25%]

[Kurapika's Trust: 19% → 20%]

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

Tonpa's eyes widened slightly before he dismissed the windows.

Thirty Nen Points and as many Experience Points, five more percentage points of Trust from Leorio, and Kurapika finally reaching the required twenty percent. All because they thought he refused to abandon them, when what he really refused to abandon was their protection.

He laughed inwardly.

'If I'd known empty words paid this well, I would've started limping back in the tunnel.'

Gon stood at thirty percent, Leorio at twenty-five, and Kurapika had finally reached the required twenty.

Only Killua remained, at sixteen percent.

The white-haired boy's face surfaced in his mind, complete with that mocking look and his readiness to question every word he heard.

'Just the brat left.'

One corner of Tonpa's mouth lifted before he turned it into a grimace of pain.

'Looks like I'll have to take a different approach to taming that one.'

Leorio sighed in resignation.

"Stay in the middle. If you feel dizzy, tell us immediately."

"Of course."

Tonpa had no intention of giving him a reason to send him back as long as he could keep walking. Being surrounded by three strong companions was safer than lying alone and waiting for another visit from Hisoka.

They continued until they reached the stream, then followed its bank. Gon stayed beside Tonpa while Kurapika moved several steps ahead to examine the path. Leorio kept looking between the trees for Ponzu's round hat.

Tonpa called her image to mind.

He remembered few details from the original story. He knew she had used chemicals and drugs, and that her hat concealed more than its appearance suggested. The memory was vague, but it was better than wandering aimlessly.

He stopped.

"I just remembered something."

All three turned toward him.

"Ponzu uses chemicals."

Leorio looked at him sharply.

"What kind?"

"Drugs and compounds that help her paralyze or sedate her opponents. I don't remember everything she carries, but she keeps several substances with her."

His gaze moved to Gon.

"They might have left a scent you could pick out."

"Not every chemical has a smell," Kurapika said.

"True. But a smell might have escaped from one of the bottles or lingered on her gear. We don't need to identify the compound, just find a scent that stands out from its surroundings. It's worth trying."

Leorio narrowed his eyes.

"How do you know all this about her?"

Tonpa could have said he had seen some of her bottles before the exam and left it at that.

But three faces were watching him, and he saw a chance to earn more from the story.

He lowered his head and let his shoulders sag.

"What I'm about to say might sound strange after everything that's happened."

He waited until he had their full attention.

"Before the exam began, I used to gather information on the rookies. I watched what they carried, what they ate, who looked strong, and who seemed easy to lure in."

Gon's gaze settled on him.

Tonpa continued, his voice growing heavier.

"I did it to choose who to offer the juice to and figure out who I could eliminate from the exam. I noticed a medicinal smell around Ponzu's gear and saw her checking some bottles."

Watching rookies and choosing victims really had been habits of the original Tonpa. The smell around Ponzu's gear and the sight of her checking bottles, however, were details he had just invented. He barely remembered her using chemicals in the anime, then attached that information to this body's past to give it a convincing source.

His fingers tightened around the hem of his torn shirt.

"I never thought information I gathered to hurt people would become useful to anyone."

Gon moved closer and gently placed a hand on his arm, clear of the bandage.

"But you're using it to help Leorio now. That's what matters."

After a moment's hesitation, Leorio said, "I don't like why you know this, but I'm not turning down information that could help me find her."

Kurapika offered no comment on his confession. He merely gave a small nod.

Ding!

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

[Deception Registered: Leorio.]

[Nen Points +8]

[Experience Points +8]

[Deception Registered: Kurapika.]

[Nen Points +5]

[Experience Points +5]

[Total Nen Points: 478]

[Experience Points: 2,118/5,400]

Tonpa dismissed the messages, fighting another smile.

'Even my bad habits earn extra income when I add things I never did.'

He turned to Gon.

"Your nose is better than any of ours. Can you try to pick up the smell of drugs or anything unusual on the wind?"

Gon lifted his face toward the breeze, then closed his eyes and drew a slow breath.

"If we pass close to her trail, I think I'll be able to pick it out."

Tonpa gestured toward the path running along the stream.

"Then let's stop looking for a girl."

He looked at the trees ahead.

"We'll look for a smell that doesn't belong in the forest."

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 71: A Cheap Vision

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Gon lowered his head slightly as he walked, sniffing the air in short intervals. He would stop beside a trunk or bush, sort through the scents clinging to it, then change direction without looking entirely certain of what he was following.

Kurapika followed him, with Tonpa walking between him and Leorio. The pain in Tonpa's side shortened his steps, and whenever he crossed a raised root, he had to stifle a groan. The cut he had given himself on his arm did not make his other injuries any less real.

After watching Gon stop for the fourth time, Leorio asked, "Smell anything?"

"Lots of things," Gon replied. "Plants, animals, old smoke… But I'm looking for something that doesn't belong in the forest."

Tonpa nodded as though that were exactly what he had expected.

Privately, he was not even certain Ponzu's chemicals had a scent Gon could follow across the island. But he had watched the boy track people from fainter traces in the anime. Using a child's nose as a search tool was no longer the strangest part of his plan.

'At least he doesn't charge a hundred points per sniff.'

They continued through the trees. As the path remained quiet, Tonpa's thoughts returned to the only member of their group still missing.

Killua.

If events had stayed close to the course he remembered, the boy should have encountered the three brothers who had surrounded him in the original story. But four additional applicants had already changed some of the results of the draw. Tonpa did not know whether Killua had taken their Badges yet or was pursuing a different target who had never appeared in the original events.

The irritating part was that he was not here.

What awaited them if they found Ponzu would be a good opportunity to raise his Trust. Killua remained at sixteen percent, while the other three had met the requirement.

'Just four percent, and the brat decides to disappear somewhere on an entire island.'

Tonpa could have used the danger from the snakes, a calculated rescue, or even a well-timed word of concern. Anything would be better than trying to tame that brat with sarcasm alone.

But Killua was absent, and Gon kept moving from one trace to the next.

As the search dragged on, they found neither Ponzu nor any clear lead. Humidity made Tonpa's clothes cling to his back, and the pain in his side began worsening with every step.

He stopped, watching Gon bend over another patch of dirt.

He had no lead.

But he had an incomplete memory and three people who did not know that.

'All right. Time for a cheap trick.'

He raised his hand.

"Wait."

All three turned toward him. Tonpa slowly straightened, keeping his expression hesitant, as though he were about to reveal a secret he had hidden for years rather than a lie he had invented moments ago.

"I have a rare ability. It doesn't always work, and I can't control it very well, but sometimes it helps me see the place I'm looking for."

Gon blinked in surprise.

"You can see places without being there?"

Leorio stared at him for a long moment before asking, "Since when?"

"For a while, but it rarely happens. I haven't found a way to make sure it works."

Kurapika folded his arms.

"You never mentioned it in any of the previous Phases."

Tonpa lowered his eyes in feigned embarrassment.

"Because it's unreliable. And if it fails, I'd rather not spend the rest of the exam explaining why I sat in the dirt with my eyes closed and accomplished nothing."

"I have a feeling we'll be asking for that explanation soon," Leorio said.

Tonpa ignored him and sat cross-legged on the ground. He rested his palms on his knees, closed his eyes, and began breathing slowly.

Silence settled around him.

He felt no strange energy. No magical image appeared in his mind. All he saw was the scene he remembered from the anime: a low entrance, darkness, and snakes moving inside a cave no one could easily leave.

'All I'm asking is that Ponzu followed the snake man, just like I remember.'

After everything that had changed, even that was no longer certain. Perhaps she had never followed him. Perhaps the draw had given her someone else. If events had diverged, his profound meditation would amount to an injured man sitting in the forest and making up a cave.

He waited long enough to lend the performance a little weight, then slowly opened his eyes.

"What did you see?" Gon asked immediately.

Tonpa fixed his gaze on a distant gap between the trees.

"A cave, but its entrance isn't in a cliff. It's set low in the ground, with trees and roots all around it."

He paused, then added in a graver tone, "And it was full of snakes."

Gon's eyes widened.

"That's amazing! If we know what kind of place to look for, I can focus on scents coming from lower ground."

Kurapika remained silent for a moment.

"Or you've described a place that could exist anywhere on this island."

Leorio nodded.

"And the part about snakes doesn't make me any more eager to check."

Ding!

The System's chime pierced Tonpa's thoughts, and several lines appeared before him.

[Deception Registered: Gon Freecss.]

[Nen Points +10]

[Experience Points +10]

[Total Nen Points: 488]

[Experience Points: 2,128/5,400]

[Kurapika's Status: Unconvinced.]

[Leorio's Status: Unconvinced.]

Tonpa dismissed the windows without letting his expression change.

'One honest child is enough to fund the prophecy.'

He stood, brushed the dirt from his clothes, and gestured for Gon to lead. Kurapika and Leorio were not convinced, but neither offered another suggestion. When Gon moved, they followed.

That was enough for Tonpa.

They set off again. This time, Gon chose lower ground and stopped beside gaps between the roots.

Before long, a sharp rustling came from their right.

Gon froze and raised his fishing rod. Kurapika's hand moved toward his weapon, while Leorio stepped half a pace forward with his briefcase raised. Tonpa, meanwhile, naturally retreated to a position that put all three closer to the sound than he was.

The bushes shook again.

A flash of white hair appeared between the leaves. A slender boy emerged with his hands in his pockets, as though he had not just approached four people ready to attack him.

Tonpa recognized him at once.

Killua.

"Killua!" Gon shouted, immediately lowering his rod.

The boy's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the group. Then his gaze moved to Tonpa's bandages and torn clothes.

Tonpa felt genuine relief before a sly smile began tugging at one corner of his mouth.

The brat had shown up on his own.

He would not have to waste hours searching for him. Better still, Killua had arrived in front of three witnesses Tonpa could use to reinforce whatever impression he chose to create.

He buried his smile beneath a look of concern and hurried toward him despite the protest from his side.

"Killua!"

The boy's hand stopped moving inside his pocket. He stepped half a pace back as Tonpa approached so quickly.

"What's wrong with you?"

Tonpa stopped in front of him and inspected his face and arms, then let out a long breath of relief.

"Thank goodness you're all right. After Hisoka showed up, we didn't know whether he'd found you too."

Killua stared at him in silence, surprise still plain in his eyes. Tonpa glanced back at his companions, catching the look Leorio and Kurapika exchanged and the small smile on Gon's face.

Ding!

Another notification sounded inside Tonpa's head.

[Group Deception Registered.]

[Targets: Gon Freecss, Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika, Leorio]

[Nen Points +5 per target]

[Experience Points +5 per target]

[Total Nen Points: 508]

[Experience Points: 2,148/5,400]

Tonpa maintained the expression of a man finally reassured of his companion's safety as he dismissed the windows.

'Twenty points, and he saved me the trouble of looking for him.'

Perhaps that was the most genuine joy he had pretended to feel all day.

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 72: Three More Percent

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Killua stared at Tonpa for a moment, as though the sudden concern greeting him was harder to explain than his appearance in the middle of the forest.

Leorio broke the silence first.

"Where have you been all this time?"

Killua turned to him and pulled one hand out of his pocket.

"Looking for my target. Once I got the Badge I needed, I started wandering around the island."

"And that's how you found us?" Gon asked.

"I heard your voices from a distance." Killua's eyes settled on Tonpa. "Some of you were hard to miss."

Tonpa ignored the look. How Killua had found them mattered less than finding out how much of the original story remained intact.

"Who was your target?"

Killua raised an eyebrow, perhaps surprised by his interest.

"One of three brothers. They stuck together and thought having more people would help."

"What happened?" Gon asked.

Killua slipped his hand back into his pocket.

"I took the Badge I wanted."

The answer was brief, but Tonpa found something reassuring in it. The three brothers, the encounter he remembered, and Killua walking away with the Badge he needed. He did not know which brother had been Killua's target, so he could not be certain the draw had remained unchanged. Still, the four additional survivors had at least not prevented the same encounter from taking place.

Some of the tension in his chest eased.

'Finally, something I haven't ruined just by being nearby.'

Killua noticed his expression.

"Why do you look relieved?"

"Because you didn't let three people steal your Badge."

"They didn't come close."

Tonpa believed him. If the encounter had posed any real danger, Killua would not have described it as though he had merely brushed three insects out of his way.

The boy looked around at the others before his gaze returned to Tonpa's bandages and torn clothes.

"So, what happened to you guys?"

Gon was the first to answer.

"A lot. I took Hisoka's Badge, but the man hunting me poisoned me afterward."

Killua's eyes snapped toward Gon, and the indifference vanished from his face.

"Poisoned you?"

Gon nodded.

"I'm fine now. Hisoka killed him and gave me back my Badges."

Killua fell silent for a moment, studying Gon's face and the way he stood, as though checking for himself that the poison had left no lingering effects.

Leorio jerked his thumb toward Tonpa.

"And this idiot got attacked too. He found the man with Kurapika's Target Badge and took it from him, but he came back to us looking like this."

Killua's gaze shifted to Tonpa.

"He could have settled for the Badges he already had," Kurapika added quietly. "Instead, he put himself at risk to get my Target Badge."

Tonpa lowered his eyes slightly, adopting the expression of a man who did not want praise for his sacrifice. This time, he did not even have to tell the lie himself. The others were doing it for him, with a conviction that made the story more persuasive than if he had repeated it himself.

"And after we met up, I found out he'd been looking for me since yesterday," Gon continued. "He thought Hisoka was chasing me."

"He refused to rest, too," Leorio said, his irritation failing to conceal his concern entirely. "He insisted on helping us find my target despite his injuries."

Killua's expression grew still.

His eyes moved between the three of them and Tonpa, then lingered on the bandages around Tonpa's side. The suspicion remained, but it was no longer the only thing in his gaze.

He turned away.

"He should have stayed in the cave. Walking around like that is stupid."

The words would have sounded cold enough if his gaze had not returned a moment later, lingering at the edges of the bandages.

Ding!

The System's chime cut through Tonpa's thoughts.

[Killua Zoldyck's Trust: 16% → 19%]

Tonpa struggled to maintain his modest expression.

Three full percentage points, yet Killua had turned away so no one would see him caring.

'Little tsundere.'

Tonpa needed just one more percentage point to meet the final requirement, but it looked as though that last point would cost him either saving Killua's life or apologizing to him. Both options were equally unappealing.

He dismissed the notification.

"Don't worry. I know my body's limits."

Leorio looked at him at once.

"You're the last person who gets to say that today."

Tonpa did not give him a chance to list the evidence against him. He gestured toward Gon and addressed Killua.

"Are you coming with us? We're looking for Ponzu, Leorio's target."

Killua shrugged.

"I've got what I need, and I don't have anything better to do."

Apparently, that was his way of announcing he was joining them.

Gon returned to the front of the group and leaned forward slightly, trying to pick up the scent he had been following before Killua appeared. Killua walked beside him, asking quietly about his encounter with Hisoka, while Kurapika, Leorio, and Tonpa followed.

Tonpa could not hear everything they said, but he saw Killua's surprise when Gon described taking the Badge with his fishing rod. Tonpa did not need to hear the details. He had witnessed that moment from much closer than he would have liked.

The group continued through the trees for several more hours.

Gon stopped whenever he caught an unfamiliar scent, then changed direction when it was lost among the smells of vegetation and damp earth. With Killua there, they made faster progress. The boy occasionally went ahead to scout the path, returning before Tonpa could cover the same distance.

Tonpa tried not to dwell on the difference in their speed.

'Nineteen percent Trust. One hundred percent insolence.'

The sun slowly sank toward the west. Orange light slipped between the branches, and the shadows lengthened. The air grew cooler, but the long walk made the pain in Tonpa's side worse. He kept his pace steady in front of Leorio, unwilling to give him another reason to insist he turn back.

Gon stopped abruptly.

Kurapika halted, and Tonpa stopped behind him, forcing Leorio to shorten his next step to avoid walking into him. Killua raised his head and surveyed the trees ahead.

"The smell is stronger," Gon said.

He crouched, pressed his fingers to the soil, then moved to the left. They followed him through a narrow gap in the bushes until the ground began to rise before them.

A small hill stood among the trees, only a few meters high. Dark rocks jutted from its sides, and a low cave entrance opened in its face, deep in shadow.

The darkness was not what stopped Tonpa.

Thick white threads stretched between the rocks and roots around the entrance. They overlapped in layers like torn curtains, their loose ends stirring in the breeze without breaking.

Spiderwebs.

Gon raised a hand and pointed toward the cave.

"She's there. The chemical smell is coming from inside."

Leorio looked at Tonpa, then at the entrance, which resembled part of the vision he had claimed to have. Even Kurapika remained silent as he studied the webs.

Tonpa, however, felt none of the triumph of a fraud whose prophecy had come true.

He searched his memories of the Fourth Phase for the hill, the webs, or that black entrance framed by threads.

Nothing.

His fingers slowly grew cold.

'This isn't the place I remember.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 73: The Wrong Cave

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa kept staring at the entrance, trying to find something familiar in the rocks and white threads.

Nothing.

A brief laugh sounded beside him. He turned to find Leorio looking between him and the hill with a mocking smile.

"Where's the cave with the entrance down in the ground, surrounded by trees? Because I'm looking at a hole halfway up a hill covered in spiderwebs."

"Apparently, your ability isn't concerned with details," Kurapika added dryly.

Tonpa's ears grew a little warm. He could fool people with a past he had never lived and cry over a mother who had never existed, but standing before physical evidence that contradicted his prophecy was a different kind of embarrassment.

'Of all the lies I've told, you decided to check this one immediately.'

He lifted his chin and pointed at the entrance.

"The important thing is that there's a cave."

"We're on an island," Leorio said. "Finding a cave doesn't make you a seer."

"Visions don't come with architectural plans."

Killua looked from one of them to another.

"What visions?"

Tonpa did not have to answer. Leorio took over with the enthusiasm of a man who had found something new to mock.

"Tonpa has a rare ability, apparently. He sits on the ground, closes his eyes, and sees the place we're looking for."

Killua looked at Tonpa.

"You?"

That single word carried far more insult than it should have.

"I told them it doesn't always work."

"And this was one of the times it didn't?"

One corner of Killua's mouth twitched. Gon tried to hide his smile, while Kurapika turned toward the cave in a way that did little to convince Tonpa of his innocence.

He waited for the System's chime.

It never came.

No points from Killua. Not even a token reward for the effort he had put into defending his vision.

'Wonderful. Events have changed, I've lost my dignity, and I haven't earned a single point from him.'

He fixed his gaze on the cave again. They were supposed to find Ponzu inside the snake charmer's cave, so the general outcome was still close to what he remembered. But the elevated entrance and spiderwebs had not been part of that scene.

Perhaps his memory was incomplete.

Or perhaps something else had changed.

Leorio approached the foot of the hill.

"I'll climb up and take a look."

"We don't know what's inside," Kurapika said.

"That's why I'm checking before we all go in. If Ponzu's there, she's my target."

He started up the rocky slope before anyone could object. Gripping the exposed roots, he brushed threads away from his face with his briefcase and reached the entrance.

He paused there and peered inside.

"I can't see anything."

He took a small flashlight from his briefcase, switched it on, and disappeared into the darkness.

Tonpa watched in silence.

In the events he remembered, Leorio had entered the cave first as well. That was a good sign, even if the damned snake charmer had decided to move caves and decorate his new place with spiderwebs.

'Maybe the rent went up and he needed a roommate.'

They waited.

Tonpa leaned against a rock, keeping his eyes on the entrance. By the end of the first minute, he noticed that his breathing had already settled. The heaviness in his legs was beginning to ease, and he had not needed to sit down before feeling ready to keep walking.

His side still hurt when he twisted, so his body had not healed. But he was recovering his breath much more quickly than he was used to.

'D-rank Endurance?'

A day like this would once have left him wishing for a bed or a painless death. Now he had walked for hours while injured, and simply stopping had already begun to restore some of his energy.

'If my Endurance reaches A rank, will I turn into Majin Buu?'

For a moment, he imagined his limbs growing back after being cut off. Then he remembered his meager balance.

'I'll probably get the ability to bleed for longer first.'

Another minute passed.

The flashlight's beam did not reappear at the entrance, and no returning footsteps came down the passage.

"Leorio?" Kurapika called.

No answer reached them.

Gon's stance changed. His grip tightened around his fishing rod, while Killua pulled his hands from his pockets and approached the slope.

Kurapika called again, louder this time.

The reply came from deep inside the cave, weak and strained.

"Don't come in!"

A harsh scraping sound followed the shout. Then something hit the ground.

Gon moved before the echo faded. Kurapika followed, and Killua bounded lightly over the rocks, overtaking them both.

Tonpa started after them, then pressed a hand to his side and deliberately slowed.

"Wait… I can't—"

No one looked back.

That suited him perfectly.

'Check the place first. I'll provide moral support from a safe distance.'

He reached the entrance after them and cautiously stepped inside. Within a few steps, the darkness swallowed the evening light behind him. Only the glow of Leorio's flashlight remained, deep in the passage.

The passage was longer than he had expected.

Spiderwebs stretched across the walls and ceiling, some hanging as low as his face. Fine threads clung to his shoulder and arm as he advanced, while dozens of small bodies moved over the rocks.

Spiders.

Some were no larger than his fingernail. Others were wider than a child's palm. They froze when the light reached them, then darted into cracks with quick movements that made Tonpa's skin crawl.

He did not see a single snake in the passage.

The air grew colder as they went deeper. The damp carried the smell of old earth and something sharply chemical. The other three slowed at the hanging threads, picking their way between them until Tonpa caught up.

Gon ducked beneath a web stretching between the walls. Kurapika passed him through a gap at its edge. Killua stayed close, watching the ceiling more than the floor.

A thick web trembled above Tonpa's head.

He hurried two steps through the same gap, passing Gon before the boy straightened. That put Kurapika in front of him, Killua to his right, and Gon just behind.

Killua gave him a sidelong look.

"Are you trying to hide between us?"

"I'm maintaining our formation."

"What formation?"

"The one that protects the injured."

Killua smiled.

"You look better since we came in."

"Fear improves circulation."

That was not entirely a lie.

The passage suddenly widened, and the flashlight's beam spilled across a large rocky chamber. The group stopped at its entrance.

Killua's smile vanished.

Leorio lay near the wall, his briefcase overturned beside him. The flashlight rested on the ground, casting its beam across the chamber. He clutched his leg with both hands. Numerous bite marks covered his ankle and lower leg, and the swelling and dark discoloration had begun to spread. Sweat covered his face, and he seemed to be struggling to keep his eyes open.

On the other side sat a man with his back against the rock. His head hung over his chest, and his body was still in a way that left little room for doubt.

Tonpa recognized his clothes and build.

The snake charmer.

He was dead, sitting in almost the same position Tonpa remembered from the anime. Spiders crawled over the rocks around him and moved among the threads overhead.

Ponzu was nearby, alive, her back pressed against the wall and her eyes fixed on the webs stretching across the chamber. She did not move when she saw them. She only raised a trembling finger to her lips, asking them to stay quiet.

Everyone was where Tonpa had expected to find them.

Only the danger was different.

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 74: The Damned Spiders

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Everyone froze at the chamber's entrance.

Tonpa gave them little time to take in the scene. He caught sight of the cold sweat covering Leorio's face and the bite marks around his ankle and lower leg. Before he considered the injury, he saw the opportunity.

His eyes widened, and he rushed toward him.

"Leorio!"

His shoe caught on a thread stretched across the floor, but he pulled it free and kept running. He dropped to his knees beside Leorio and gripped his shoulder, as though another second's delay might cost the man his life.

"Leorio, can you hear me?"

Gon caught up and crouched beside the injury while Kurapika approached quickly. Killua stopped behind them, looking up at the walls and ceiling as he tracked the small bodies moving among the webs.

Ponzu's gaze shifted between Tonpa and Leorio, her eyebrows rising at his sudden rush.

Leorio's eyes were half-open. They moved with difficulty toward Tonpa when he heard his voice and rested on his face for a moment. He tried to speak, but the words dissolved into broken breaths.

Tonpa tightened his grip on his shoulder.

"Hang on. We're not leaving you here."

Leorio gave a weak nod, then his fingers tightened around his leg again.

Ding!

The System's chime rang through Tonpa's head, and a window appeared before his eyes.

[Group Deception Registered.]

[Targets: Gon Freecss, Killua Zoldyck, Kurapika, Leorio, Ponzu.]

[Nen Points +5 per target.]

[Experience Points +5 per target.]

[Total Nen Points: 533]

[Experience Points: 2,173/5,400]

Tonpa dismissed the window without changing his worried expression.

'Twenty-five points for running a few meters. If injuries were always this profitable, I'd open a clinic.'

Gon carefully lifted Leorio's trouser leg. The skin around the bites was swollen, with dark marks appearing in pairs. Discoloration spread along his leg, and his breaths grew shorter by the moment.

"What happened to him?" Kurapika asked Ponzu.

"He tried to go back outside to warn you. The spiders attacked him."

She looked at his leg and drew her arms against her body.

"A whole swarm rushed him. Several managed to bite him before he could get back here."

Kurapika looked up at the threads stretching across the passage.

"They attack anyone who tries to leave?"

She nodded.

"They let people in, but they won't let us out. They also gather around that man and attack anyone who gets close to him."

Killua looked at the corpse.

"Were they with him?"

"I don't know."

Ponzu hesitated before continuing.

"He was the target I drew. I watched him for a while before he entered the cave. I saw him controlling snakes with simple gestures, but I never saw these spiders with him."

She raised her eyes toward the webs covering the ceiling.

"They appeared when I approached him in here. And even after he died, they kept moving as though they were following his orders."

Killua studied the marks on Leorio's leg.

"Are all of them venomous?"

"Yes. I recognize the species. They're all venomous, and they carry the same venom. A single bite would have affected him, but this many…"

Her gaze stopped on Leorio's face.

"He won't stay conscious for long."

Dozens of thin legs moved through the webs. The spiders kept their distance, but they had spread between the chamber and the passage entrance in dense layers that made approaching them seem like a very bad idea.

Tonpa leaned back without taking his hand off Leorio.

In the events he remembered, the cave had been full of snakes. The snake charmer had died in almost the same spot, and his snakes had continued following his orders, preventing anyone from leaving.

The outcome before him was much the same.

A dead man.

Ponzu trapped.

Leorio poisoned.

But the snakes were gone. Venomous spiders covered the walls and ceiling in their place.

'How did the snakes turn into spiders?'

He stared at the dead man, searching for an explanation that did not involve the world swapping animals just to annoy him.

'Could this weirdo control more than one species? Or did entering a different cave change the whole trap?'

Neither possibility appealed to him. If events began keeping their outcomes while changing the means by which they happened, his knowledge of the future could become bait, luring him toward an entirely different danger.

Leorio stirred and let out a faint groan, drawing everyone's attention back to him.

Gon knelt beside his leg and took a piece of cloth Kurapika handed him. He wiped away the blood around the bites, then bent down and brought his mouth close to the nearest wound.

Tonpa realized what he intended before he began.

"Gon—"

The boy tried to suck out the venom, then turned and spat it away. He moved to another bite and repeated the attempt, but Ponzu shook her head.

"That won't save him. He's been bitten several times. The venom has already spread through his body."

Gon looked up at her anxiously.

"Do you have an antidote?"

"No. I didn't even know these spiders were here."

Tonpa's gaze shifted to the snake charmer's corpse.

He knew from the anime that the man carried an antidote. If that detail had remained unchanged, it made sense that the vial would still be on him.

But the antidote Tonpa remembered was for snake venom.

Leorio had been bitten by spiders.

Tonpa clenched his jaw. Perhaps the man carried an antidote for them too, if they really were under his control. Or perhaps they would find a vial in his pockets that could do nothing for Leorio.

'If it kept the same disaster, it had better have kept a solution.'

Several spiders crawled over the man's shoulders and chest. Others disappeared into the folds of his clothes. Even checking what he carried would mean getting close to dozens of venomous fangs.

Tonpa's eyes slowly moved to Killua.

The white-haired brat was here, and he had said himself that his family had trained him to resist poisons since childhood. Tonpa did not know how this particular venom would affect him, but he was still better equipped than anyone else to risk approaching the body.

'Finally, a practical use for the Zoldyck family's parenting methods.'

His speed might allow him to search the corpse and get away before the spiders surrounded him. And if he was bitten, his resistance would give him a better chance than the others.

It was no guaranteed solution, but at least it did not require Tonpa to stick his hand among those creatures.

He opened his mouth to draw Killua's attention to the man's pockets.

Then his eyes settled on a black spider crawling slowly across the corpse's chest.

A spider.

His gaze shifted to Kurapika.

The blond young man was supporting Leorio's shoulder, his eyes moving between the injured leg and Ponzu, while Gon continued wiping blood from the swollen skin. Neither noticed the look Tonpa cast toward the corpse again.

An ugly idea began to form in his mind.

He did not need to invent an entire story yet. One word with two meanings would be enough, especially if the right person heard it at the right moment.

He glanced at Leorio. The man was still responding to Kurapika's touch, though barely.

Just a few moments. He would let the word have its effect, then draw their attention to whatever the dead man might be carrying.

Tonpa slowly moved away from Leorio.

He stood and stared at the corpse as though something buried in his memory had suddenly awakened. He let his breathing quicken, then seized the front of his shirt with both hands.

He pulled hard.

The already damaged fabric tore with a sharp sound, exposing the bandages around his side.

Kurapika raised his head. Gon's hand stopped above Leorio's leg.

"Tonpa?"

He did not answer.

He let his shoulders tremble and tightened his fists around the fabric until his knuckles stood out. Staring at the snake charmer, he allowed feigned anger to spread gradually across his face.

The performance was so ridiculous that part of him wanted to stop and apologize before finishing it.

But Kurapika was watching.

Backing down would not preserve his dignity now anyway.

His voice came out low and strained.

"That bastard…"

Killua looked from Tonpa to the dead man. Ponzu shrank back against the wall, while Leorio's eyes moved with difficulty toward the sound.

"Do you know him?" Kurapika asked.

Tonpa slowly raised his head. He did not look at Kurapika, keeping his eyes fixed on the corpse.

"He must be one of those damned Spiders."

Kurapika's expression hardened.

Tonpa saw the change at once. The word had struck exactly where he had intended.

He released his torn shirt and stepped toward the corpse, but Gon rose and caught his arm before he could get close to the spiders.

"Why did you die here?!" Tonpa shouted. "Why did you die before I could find you, you bastard?!"

His voice echoed off the cave walls. Threads trembled, and the spiders began to stir restlessly.

Tonpa stopped advancing at once, letting Gon's grip appear to be the only thing holding him back.

Killua moved beside him, his eyes on the webs.

"Keep your voice down."

Tonpa tugged against Gon's grip but kept his feet planted.

"I should have killed you myself!" The words came through clenched teeth this time. "I should have skinned you and left your remains for the spiders that serve you!"

Inside, the last remaining scrap of his dignity shriveled.

'I tore my shirt and threatened to skin a corpse in front of five people. Kurapika had better be generous.'

No one laughed.

Gon kept hold of his arm, his face tense with shock. Ponzu's eyes widened, while Killua shifted his gaze from the webs to Tonpa without saying anything else.

Kurapika remained motionless, his hand beneath Leorio's shoulder.

Silence settled over the chamber. Amid the movement of tiny legs through the webs, Tonpa could still hear Leorio's broken breathing.

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 75: The Fake Detective

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Silence still hung over the chamber after Tonpa's outburst.

Gon's hand remained around his arm, and Ponzu sat near the wall with wide eyes. Even Killua watched without comment.

Kurapika finally moved.

He carefully lowered Leorio's shoulder and settled him against the rock before standing. Then he approached Tonpa and placed a steady hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down, Tonpa. Having spiders around him doesn't mean he's one of them."

Tonpa kept his eyes on the corpse for another moment, then turned sharply toward Kurapika in a show of anger.

"And how do you know that?"

Kurapika's hand stayed on his shoulder, but his fingers tightened slightly. Hesitation flickered in his eyes before he concealed it behind a calm expression.

"Because I know more about them than you think."

Tonpa waited for him to add something.

He did not.

Tonpa lowered his voice.

"How do you know them?"

Kurapika paused, then withdrew his hand.

"I'll tell you once we get out of here."

The refusal was polite but final. Tonpa did not press him. Forcing Kurapika to talk now might turn sympathy into suspicion.

He let the tension gradually leave his shoulders, then lowered his head as though regaining control had taken considerable effort.

"I'm sorry."

He looked at Gon, Ponzu, and Killua, then at Leorio, who remained propped against the wall, fighting to stay conscious through short breaths.

"You shouldn't have had to see that side of me."

'Especially since that side of me was born a minute and a half ago.'

Gon released his arm and returned to Leorio's side. Killua continued watching Tonpa through narrowed eyes, while Kurapika's gaze never left him.

"I'll explain everything once we leave the cave," Tonpa added.

That sentence served two purposes. It gave them a promise to occupy their curiosity and postponed the real lie until he could invent it somewhere away from a corpse guarded by dozens of spiders.

He looked down at his shirt and saw the long tear he had made with his own hands. Bandages showed through it, and a strip of fabric hung near his waist.

'Wonderful. Even if the trick fails, I've successfully destroyed my clothes.'

He adjusted what he could of the fabric, then raised his head. He could not let the silence drag on. Leorio was barely conscious, and every moment that passed without a solution made Tonpa's performance of concern worth less.

He straightened and adopted a calmer expression.

"But first, we need to understand what happened here."

His gaze shifted to the snake charmer's corpse.

He did not approach it. Spiders rested on the man's shoulders and among the folds of his jacket, while others hung from the ceiling on fine threads. Any attempt to touch him might provoke them all.

Tonpa gestured to Killua.

"Shine the flashlight on his face."

Killua raised an eyebrow.

"Is your vision working again?"

"Just do it."

Killua bent down and picked up the flashlight beside Leorio's briefcase, then aimed it at the corpse. The beam revealed a pale face with pronounced swelling around the lips and eyes. One of the man's hands remained on his knee, its skin covered in red patches with tiny punctures at their centers.

Tonpa clasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward slightly, pretending to study every detail.

He could not touch the corpse or check its pulse, but the scene gave him enough to begin. He had watched Kurapika solve this mystery in the anime. If the cause of death remained as he remembered, he had an explanation ready. If it had changed, Ponzu's reaction might reveal that before he committed to too many details.

He looked at the hand, then the face, before letting his eyes travel over the rest of the body.

"There's no visible fatal injury, and not enough evidence of a struggle to explain his death."

"Then what killed him?" Gon asked.

Tonpa pointed at the red marks.

"Those aren't spider bites. They're bee stings. Dozens of them, all on the exposed parts of his body."

Ponzu's eyes widened slightly.

Tonpa continued, watching her face.

"But the number of stings wasn't the only problem. His face and lips are abnormally swollen. He was severely allergic to bee venom and went into anaphylactic shock."

He lowered his voice, giving it the certainty of a man who had spent years examining corpses rather than poisoning rookies with juice.

"He stopped breathing before he could save himself."

Kurapika looked at the marks Tonpa had indicated, then silently studied the corpse.

Tonpa was not finished.

He took a shallow breath through his nose. A faint trace of the chemical smell Gon had followed still lingered in the air. Slightly sweet, but unlike the scent of any plant inside the cave.

He closed his eyes for a moment as though analyzing it, then looked at Ponzu.

"And there's a sedative in the air."

Her shoulders tensed.

"The smell has faded because so much time has passed, but it's still lingering here," Tonpa said. "You must have released a sleeping gas at the entrance and let it spread inside until he lost consciousness."

He paused before adding:

"Then you approached him to take his Badge, and something caused your bees to attack him."

Ponzu shrank back toward the wall.

Her eyes moved from Tonpa to the chamber's entrance, then to the corpse, as though searching for the evidence that had exposed her.

"That's… right."

Gon looked at her in surprise.

"I released the gas from outside the cave and waited for it to take effect," Ponzu said. "When I went in, he was unconscious. I approached him to take his Badge, and the spiders gathered around him started moving."

She raised a hand to the edge of her hat.

"I backed away quickly, and the edge of the cover keeping my bees inside caught on a thread. The cover slipped, and the swarm got out."

She looked toward the dead man.

"They attacked him while he was unconscious. I didn't know he was allergic."

Then she turned back to Tonpa, caution mingling with admiration on her face.

"How did you figure all that out without even touching him?"

Tonpa lifted his chin slightly.

"The evidence was there."

"That's amazing," Gon said with open admiration.

Even Kurapika was looking at him differently, as though the earlier admission and this deduction had made him reconsider the man standing before him.

Killua moved the flashlight away from the corpse.

"I didn't think you could do anything like that."

Tonpa gave him a reproachful look.

"Leorio's in danger. This isn't the time for jokes."

'Especially after I stole the analysis from someone standing two steps away.'

Leorio's hand shifted against the ground, and his lips parted.

"Since when… do you know this stuff?"

The question came out in broken fragments, but it was clear enough. Gon turned at once and supported his shoulder, while Tonpa maintained his serious expression.

Ding!

The System's chime rang through his head, and a window appeared before his eyes.

[Deception Registered.]

[Target: Kurapika]

[Nen Points +15]

[Experience Points +15]

[Group Deception Registered.]

[Targets: Gon Freecss, Killua Zoldyck, Leorio, Ponzu]

[Nen Points +8 per target]

[Experience Points +8 per target]

[Total Nen Points: 580]

[Experience Points: 2,220/5,400]

Tonpa's eyes stopped on the reward from Kurapika.

Fifteen from him, compared to eight from each of the others.

'So that nonsense about the Spiders really did get through to him.'

The System had not explained the difference, but Tonpa suspected the analysis alone was not responsible. Perhaps Kurapika believed there was something personal behind his anger, making him more willing to believe what followed.

Tonpa felt the urge to smile but turned it into an anxious glance at Leorio.

'Let's keep milking this.'

He took one step toward the corpse. Several spiders swayed on their threads.

"A man who controls venomous creatures must keep an antidote close at hand," he said. "I'll search his jacket."

The words came out with a confidence he did not entirely possess. He did not know whether the vial was still there or whether its contents would work against the spiders' venom. But the corpse remained the only possibility he could offer.

Ponzu stared at him.

"I told you the spiders guard his body. They'll attack the moment you touch him."

Tonpa looked at Leorio, then clenched his jaw.

"We don't have time to wait for a safer solution."

He moved slowly toward the corpse.

One step.

Then another.

He had no desire to reach it quickly. He only needed to give the white-haired brat enough time to understand the role Tonpa had prepared for him.

'Come on, Killua. Time to put that healthy childhood to use.'

He reached toward the man's jacket, watching the spiders out of the corner of his eye.

Before his fingers reached the fabric, a cold hand closed around his wrist and stopped him.

He looked to the side and found Killua beside him.

"Stay here," the boy said. "I'll do it. Poisons don't—"

Ding!

A sharp chime pierced Tonpa's head before Killua could finish.

It was not the chime that accompanied a registered deception.

A red window formed at the edge of his vision.

Tonpa's hidden smile died, and anxiety tightened around his stomach.

[Warning.]

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 76: A Plan That Never Existed

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

[Warning.]

Killua still held Tonpa's wrist and had not yet finished speaking when the red window expanded before Tonpa's eyes.

[Emergency Side Quest Issued: Antidote.]

[Objective: Retrieve the antidote from the snake charmer's corpse yourself.]

[Completion Condition: The Host must retrieve the antidote with his own hand.]

[If someone else retrieves the antidote first, the quest will be considered a failure.]

[Rewards: One Free Stat Upgrade.]

[Nen Points +500]

[Experience Points +500]

[Failure Penalty: All of the Host's stats will be reduced by one rank.]

Tonpa froze.

His gaze moved from the window to Killua's hand around his wrist, then to the spiders clustered around the snake charmer's corpse.

'This isn't a warning. It's blackmail in formal language.'

If he let Killua retrieve the antidote, his Strength and Speed would drop from Rank C to D, while his Flexibility, Endurance, and Intelligence would fall back to Rank E. He would need two thousand three hundred Nen Points just to recover what he already had.

But the reward was equally tempting.

If the upgrade allowed him to choose a stat, as it had before, he could raise his Strength or Speed from C to B—a leap worth ten thousand Nen Points, on top of five hundred Nen Points and an equal amount of Experience Points.

That was a reward worth taking a risk for.

Unfortunately, his body was what he had to risk.

He looked at the spiders again. Some were as large as his palm, while the smaller ones were far more numerous. Their legs moved over the threads surrounding the corpse, producing faint rustling sounds that made the exposed skin beneath his torn shirt crawl.

'Of course. Why rely on the most poison-resistant person here when I could find out how many bites my body can accommodate?'

Tonpa pulled his wrist out of Killua's grasp and retreated several steps toward the others. The boy watched him go, then turned toward the corpse.

"No."

Killua stopped and raised an eyebrow.

"No what?"

"I won't let you risk your life."

Silence held for a moment.

Killua stared at him as though waiting for him to admit it was a joke.

"You were about to let me go a second ago."

"I was thinking."

"That took a long time for such a stupid conclusion."

Kurapika intervened before the argument could drag on.

"Killua has a high resistance to poisons. It makes sense for him to go."

"Resistance isn't immunity."

Tonpa fixed his eyes on the corpse, feigning the composure of a man who had made a difficult decision rather than the panic of someone whose System had just threatened to destroy his stats.

"Besides, I have a way to deal with the spiders."

Everyone looked at him.

"What way?" Kurapika asked.

That was an annoyingly reasonable question.

Tonpa pointed to the threads stretching between the corpse and the ground.

"They use vibrations to locate anyone approaching. I've been watching how they move since we came in. If one person advances through the gaps between the threads, he might be able to reach the body and search it before the vibrations alert the rest."

He was not sure half of that was true, but his confident tone made it sound like the result of years of experience rather than a lie invented a moment ago.

"I can come with you if you need help," Gon said.

"No. A second person would create more vibrations and ruin everything."

Killua narrowed his eyes.

"You're making this up."

"If I were making up a method, I'd invent one that didn't involve approaching a corpse covered in spiders."

Killua did not look convinced. He pointed to the ground in front of the dead man.

"Then show me the route you're talking about."

Tonpa studied the gaps between the threads and chose the nearest one without knowing where it led.

"I'll test the first few steps. If they move toward me, I'll back off."

Kurapika continued watching his face.

"There's no need to take that risk. We can think of another solution."

Tonpa looked at Leorio, who was propped against the wall. He was barely conscious, his breathing short and uneven. They did not have enough time to test safer alternatives.

Tonpa let his shoulders sink, then lowered his voice.

"I spent years hurting applicants and keeping them from passing the exam. If there's one thing I can do to make up for that, I'm not backing down now."

He felt embarrassed before he had even finished the sentence.

'I'll do anything to atone for my mistakes, provided it pays five hundred points and a free upgrade.'

Gon's expression changed first.

"Be careful."

After a moment's hesitation, Kurapika said:

"Only test the route. If you think your method won't work, retreat immediately. Don't rush toward the body."

Tonpa gave a solemn, knowing nod.

"That's what I intend to do."

'Actually, I intend to scream until someone carries me.'

Killua caught his arm again before he could move.

"I'll be right behind you. And if it turns out you lied about having a method, I'll kill you myself after you survive."

"Let's save the threats for when I'm sure I have a future."

Killua finally released him.

Tonpa turned toward the corpse and began to advance.

He made sure his steps were slow and steady, as though he were following a precise procedure that must not be interrupted. In truth, he was simply trying to keep his knees from revealing how frightened he was.

He watched the spiders on the threads. Some moved as he approached, but none had attacked him yet.

The corpse sat against the wall, its head hanging over its chest. Among the folds of the man's clothes, near his belt, Tonpa spotted the edge of a small leather pouch. A glass vial protruded from it, holding a pale blue liquid.

'Please be the antidote, not cheap perfume.'

Three steps remained.

Then two.

One of the spiders on the corpse's shoulder stopped and turned toward him.

Tonpa stopped with it.

He had no method.

There was no secret technique, no experience handling venomous spiders. He had two hands that were beginning to shake, a torn shirt, and a System that had threatened to wipe out the upgrades he had risked his life to obtain.

'Excellent plan. Get close, grab the vial, and try not to die before the reward registers.'

He took another step and heard Killua move behind him.

He did not give him time to speak.

He lunged.

His hand shot toward the pouch, and his fingers closed around the vial. The instant his forearm brushed the man's clothes, the threads spread across the walls shuddered all at once.

Dozens of small bodies turned toward him.

'Ah.'

The spiders struck.

The first sank its fangs into the back of his hand before he could pull the vial free. Another followed at his wrist, and then he felt a third land on his shoulder and crawl beneath the edge of his torn shirt.

Pain erupted across his body like a series of hot needles.

"Tonpa!" Gon shouted.

Killua rushed closer and reached out, but Tonpa tightened his grip on the vial and yelled:

"Stay back!"

It was still stuck inside the pouch. If Killua took it instead, all Tonpa would get out of this attempt was venom and a penalty.

He yanked hard until it came free of the leather.

The vial was in his hand.

He turned away from the corpse and ran.

Or tried to.

More spiders sank their fangs into his leg and neck. His limbs began to grow heavy before he had covered half the distance. The ground tilted beneath his feet, and the faces ahead blurred together.

But he kept hold of the vial.

Killua reached him as his legs gave way. He knocked the spiders off Tonpa's arm and caught him before he hit the ground.

Tonpa pushed the vial into his hand.

"The antidote…"

"I know."

Killua's voice seemed to come from far away, though he was right in front of him.

Darkness crept in at the edges of Tonpa's vision. He caught a glimpse of Gon running toward him and Kurapika bending over Leorio.

Then everything went black.

Ding!

The System's chime was the last thing he heard.

Tonpa heard the fire first.

Then came the sound of someone chewing, a sarcastic remark from Killua, and Leorio asking for another piece of meat.

He did not open his eyes immediately.

His last memories were of dozens of spiders sinking their fangs into his body, venom spreading through him, and the System's chime before darkness swallowed everything. For a brief moment, he wondered whether he had died.

Then the smell of roasted meat reached his nose, and his stomach clenched with hunger.

'Even after all that, my stomach was the first organ back at work. Good to know it has its priorities straight.'

He cautiously opened his eyes.

A stone ceiling free of webs stretched above him. A short distance away, a small fire burned. Gon, Killua, and Leorio sat around it eating, while Kurapika remained near the entrance, watching outside.

Tonpa stared at them for several seconds.

'Either I survived, or the venom left me with some deeply irritating hallucinations.'

He lowered his gaze to his bandaged arms, then tried moving his feet. They were still there.

So was the pain.

'Excellent. I didn't die. I just feel as though I tried.'

A short groan escaped him.

Gon stopped eating and turned. The moment he saw Tonpa's open eyes, he jumped up and ran over.

"Tonpa! Are you all right?"

Tonpa looked at the bandages covering most of his arms.

'Excellent question. Now we just need someone who knows the answer.'

He tried to sit up, but a dull ache spread from the bites and forced him back down.

Gon reached him and knelt beside him.

"Don't move so quickly. Leorio said you need to rest."

Kurapika left the entrance and approached, while Killua set his meat aside.

"Took you long enough to wake up, you idiot," Leorio said.

His voice was weaker than usual, but he looked far better than the last time Tonpa had seen him.

Tonpa ran his tongue over his dry lips.

"What happened?"

"After you lost consciousness, Killua pulled you away from the spiders," Gon said. "The vial you grabbed really was the antidote."

"Then the spiders swarmed the place," Killua added. "Because your brilliant plan upset every last one of them."

Tonpa ignored the comment and looked at Gon.

"How did we get out?"

"Ponzu released the sleeping gas she had left. We moved as far from the spiders as we could, and I held my breath until most of them stopped moving."

Gon smiled a little.

"Then we started carrying you all out, one at a time. Killua helped."

"The gas knocked out Ponzu and Kurapika too," Killua said. "It had less of an effect on me, so I could still move."

Tonpa blinked.

"You carried me?"

"Yes."

He looked at Gon's small frame, then decided his dignity had suffered enough damage for one day.

Kurapika added:

"I regained consciousness shortly after they brought me out. Gon and Killua had already given you both the antidote. Once your conditions stabilized, we moved you to this cave."

Leorio gestured toward the bandages on Tonpa's arms.

"I had fewer bites, so I woke up first. You, on the other hand, let half the spiders on the island try their fangs out on you."

Only then did Tonpa notice someone was missing.

"Wait… Where's the girl who was with us?"

"We left her somewhere safe, away from the cave," Gon answered.

Tonpa looked at Leorio.

"And her Badge?"

Leorio reached into his pocket and took out the metal disk. The number 246 was visible on its surface.

"I have it."

"Before she released the gas, we agreed to give her the man's Badge and get her out with us in exchange for hers," Gon said. "She handed me this one, and Killua took the man's Badge once the spiders had settled down."

"Number 103," Killua added. "We left it with her so the examiners could track her."

Leorio returned the Badge to his pocket and picked up another piece of meat.

Tonpa breathed slowly.

He had survived.

More importantly, his stats should have survived with him.

"The danger has passed, but you still need rest," Kurapika said. "You were unconscious for several hours."

Tonpa nodded, then glanced toward the fire.

"Is there any meat left?"

"Before you eat, you're answering a question," Killua said.

Tonpa's stomach stopped celebrating.

Killua folded his arms.

"What happened to your method?"

"What method?"

"The one you claimed would let you take the antidote without the spiders touching you."

Gon frowned.

"You said you knew how to handle them. But you just rushed at the body and let them bite you."

"You never had a plan, did you?" Kurapika added quietly.

Tonpa looked from one face to another.

He could not find a lie that would survive more than a few seconds.

He lowered his head.

"I thought I could grab the vial and get back before they reached me."

"So you lied to us," Killua said.

"If I'd told you the truth, you wouldn't have let me go."

"That's exactly why you shouldn't have gone!" Gon said.

Leorio pointed his piece of meat at him.

"As the person waiting for that antidote, I think I have every right to call your plan stupid. If you'd broken the vial when you fell, we'd both be dead."

The embarrassment on Tonpa's face was genuine this time, though not for the reasons they assumed.

'I got poisoned, retrieved the antidote, and saved his life. Now he's lecturing me while eating in front of me. Friendship offers a questionable return on investment.'

He looked up at them.

"All right. I made a mistake."

"And lied," Killua added.

"And lying was a mistake."

"Don't do it again," Kurapika said. "If you don't have a plan, tell us. Perhaps we can come up with one together."

Tonpa nodded silently while cursing Kurapika, Killua, Gon, and Leorio. Then he reserved a separate, considerably longer curse for the System.

That was when he remembered the final chime.

The one he had heard just before losing consciousness.

He lay back and closed his eyes, pretending he needed to rest, then called up the unread notification.

The window appeared before him.

Tonpa read the first line.

Then he moved on to what lay beneath it.

His breath caught, and the last traces of drowsiness vanished from his face.

'…Impossible.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 77: The Grand Prize

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa kept staring at the windows suspended before him, momentarily forgetting the lingering pain in his limbs and the spider bites that still burned across his skin.

The notification issued as he lost consciousness had not disappeared. It had waited through every hour he had spent unconscious, as though the System refused to let a little venom interfere with its official procedures.

[Emergency Side Quest Completed: Antidote.]

[The Host personally retrieved the antidote.]

[Nen Points +500]

[Experience Points +500]

[The Host has received one Free Stat Upgrade.]

[Total Nen Points: 1,080]

[Experience Points: 2,720/5,400]

Tonpa read the messages slowly.

Five hundred Nen Points, the same amount of Experience Points, and a free upgrade. A respectable reward for allowing dozens of spiders to share his body as a meal.

'You could have been clearer about the pain in the quest description.'

But that was not what had stunned him.

Beneath the emergency quest notification, a second window glowed a faint gold.

[Side Quest Completed: The Protagonists' Trust.]

[A Trust Level of at least 20% has been reached with all designated targets.]

[Gon Freecss: Requirement met.]

[Killua Zoldyck: Requirement met.]

[Kurapika: Requirement met.]

[Leorio: Requirement met.]

Tonpa's gaze stopped on Killua's name.

The boy had been the last obstacle to completing the quest. The last time Tonpa had checked, Killua's Trust had still been at nineteen percent.

Sometime between his approach to a corpse guarded by spiders and his awakening with a body covered in bites, it had reached the required threshold.

Tonpa opened his eyes and turned toward Killua, who sat beside the fire.

The boy was holding a piece of meat over the flames when he looked up. Their eyes met, and Tonpa waited to see something different in his expression.

He found only the usual irritation.

Killua frowned.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Checking whether the venom damaged my eyesight."

Killua glanced behind him, then looked back.

"And you started with me?"

"You were the nearest nuisance."

Killua's eyes narrowed, while Gon let out a laugh. Even Leorio, still pale and exhausted, managed a faint smile before returning to the slow business of chewing his food.

Yet the confirmation beside Killua's name remained.

[Requirement met.]

'I had to nearly die in front of him before he'd let me past twenty percent. How generous.'

A new message appeared beneath the quest window.

[The quest was completed before the deadline.]

[The Host's performance can be evaluated to determine the reward tier.]

[Begin evaluation?]

[Yes/No]

Tonpa fixed his gaze on "Yes."

Finally.

He was about to select it when Gon approached and leaned toward him.

"Are you still dizzy?"

Tonpa reluctantly pulled his attention away from the window.

"A little."

"Don't try to stand until you've recovered some strength," Kurapika said from the other side of the fire. "Getting that much venom in your system at once was dangerous."

Leorio added, his voice too weak to support his angry tone:

"And if you ever claim to have a plan again, then throw yourself into a swarm of venomous creatures, I'll kill you once I recover."

Tonpa looked at him.

"Shouldn't a doctor thank the person who brought him the antidote?"

"I'll thank you after I hit you."

"That says a lot about your future as a doctor."

Killua lifted his meat away from the flames.

"Maybe he needs a blow to the head. Might rearrange whatever's left in there."

All four continued watching him, leaving Tonpa no chance to return to the window.

'You rescued me and gave me the antidote. Didn't that include the right to a minute of silence?'

"I'm fine," he said. "I just need to rest."

Kurapika studied him for another moment before finally nodding. Gon returned to his place beside the fire, while Leorio kept watching Tonpa as though he expected him to jump up and run toward the next source of poison he spotted.

Tonpa immediately returned to the window.

"Yes" was still waiting.

He selected it before one of his companions decided to check his pulse or ask about his childhood.

The window disappeared, replaced by a single line.

[Evaluating the Host's performance…]

Tonpa held his breath.

The results appeared one after another.

[Primary Requirement: Reach a Trust Level of 20% with four targets before the end of the Hunter Exam.]

[Requirement met before the deadline.]

[Trust Levels exceeded the minimum requirement with multiple targets.]

[Risks undertaken by the Host on behalf of the targets have been taken into account.]

Tonpa's eyebrows rose at the final line.

'On their behalf? I was protecting my stats from the penalty.'

He had no intention of arguing with an assessment that worked in his favor.

The window shuddered, and its golden glow intensified.

[Performance Rating: Exceptional.]

[The Host has earned the Grand Prize.]

Tonpa slowly sat up, ignoring his body's protests.

'The Grand Prize?'

The last time the System had used grand language, it had sent him to retrieve an antidote from a corpse surrounded by spiders. Even so, he could not stop the excitement rising in his chest.

The reward appeared.

[Nen Points +8,000]

[Experience Points +8,000]

Tonpa did not blink.

He read the number once.

Then again.

Eight thousand Nen Points.

Eight thousand Experience Points.

'…I'm rich.'

Only days ago, he had measured the success of his deceptions in increments of five or ten points, treating a hundred as capital that needed protecting. Now the System had dropped a fortune in front of him for a quest he had only hoped would spare him forced transportation to the Dark Continent.

The new totals appeared.

[Total Nen Points: 9,080]

[Experience Points: 10,720/5,400]

[Level Advancement Requirements Met.]

[Level Advancement Available.]

Tonpa's lips moved as he ran through the calculation in his head.

Four targets.

Eight thousand points.

Two thousand for each of them.

His gaze moved between Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio.

'Two thousand points a head. And I've been wasting my time deceiving applicants who give me five points, then chase me with knives.'

For the first time, the quest did not seem like an elaborate threat with the word "reward" attached. He had actually received several times more than everything he had earned since arriving in this world.

His balance was only nine hundred and twenty points short of ten thousand—the amount needed to raise his Speed or Strength from Rank C to B.

Before he could begin regretting the points he had already spent, another window appeared.

[Additional Reward.]

[The Host has received one Free Stat Upgrade.]

Tonpa stared at the line.

He already had a free upgrade from the emergency quest.

Now he had a second.

He could use one to raise his Strength from C to B and the other to bring his Speed to the same rank—two upgrades that would otherwise have cost him twenty thousand Nen Points. He could choose another stat instead, but he did not have to decide now.

A smile threatened to spread across his face. He quickly lowered his head and clutched his side as though it hurt.

He did not want the others to see him smiling moments after they had scolded him for risking his life. They might decide the venom really had damaged his brain.

'Nine thousand and eighty points, two free upgrades, and a Level Advancement waiting.'

He waited.

The windows remained unchanged.

A second passed.

Then another.

Tonpa raised an eyebrow.

'You damned System. Don't tell me that's all after everything you put me through.'

He paused, then realized just how greedy that complaint was.

He had just received a reward worth more than everything he had owned before, yet he was still waiting for more, like a customer who had discovered the restaurant had forgotten his complimentary dessert.

'Greed isn't a flaw when the shopkeeper threatens to kill you.'

Tonpa was about to dismiss the windows and leave his upgrade choices until he was alone. He had no logical reason to expect anything else.

But his hand stopped before he could finish the motion.

Ding!

A fresh chime pierced his thoughts.

Tonpa slowly raised his eyes.

A dark glow began gathering beneath the golden windows, then formed one final notification.

[Hidden Reward Requirements Met.]

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 78: The Finger Sutra

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

A second line appeared beneath the dark notification.

[The Host has obtained an unknown book.]

Tonpa stared at the words, waiting for a title, a cover, or anything that might explain why this counted as a reward.

Nothing appeared.

'An unknown book with an equally unknown description. Good to see the System has finally learned my old sales techniques.'

The window shifted in his vision, and a new question appeared within it.

[Would you like to extract the book's contents and transfer them directly into the Host's mind?]

[Yes/No]

Tonpa read the question twice.

Having the contents of something unknown poured directly into his brain was hardly a decision a sensible person would recommend. But only hours earlier, he had let dozens of venomous spiders crawl over his body for a reward. He no longer had the right to pretend caution was a guiding principle in his life.

'If this turns out to be a recipe, I'm making the System taste it.'

He selected Yes with an enthusiasm he tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal from himself.

Ding!

[Book contents identified.]

[Title: Finger Sutra.]

Tonpa's smile froze.

'…The what Sutra?'

He had no time for further objections.

[Content extraction initiated.]

Information flooded his mind all at once.

His body tensed, and both hands flew to the sides of his head before he could stop them. It was not a sharp pain, but a dense pressure spreading behind his eyes, as though someone were trying to cram years of instruction into his memory in a matter of moments.

Stances he had never assumed appeared before him. Fingers extended and curled. Wrists turned. A foot settled at a precise angle as the hips and shoulder shifted. With each movement came an understanding of how to gather power and direct it into a fingertip.

"Tonpa?"

Gon's voice reached him from nearby, and he felt a hand settle on his shoulder. He tried to raise his head, but another image surged through his mind and interrupted the attempt.

The flood continued for several seconds, then stopped abruptly.

The sounds of the cave became clear again: crackling firewood, approaching footsteps, and Leorio asking where it hurt.

[Transfer of the book's contents complete.]

Tonpa drew a slow breath and lowered one hand.

Gon was crouching in front of him. Leorio had come over, one hand braced against the rock.

"My head…" Tonpa waited until he could focus on his face. "A headache. It's easing."

Gon kept his hand on Tonpa's shoulder.

"Do you need some water?"

Tonpa shook his head and lowered his other hand.

"Just give me a moment."

Leorio watched until his breathing steadied.

"Tell us if it comes back. Don't wait until you collapse again."

Tonpa nodded. Gon moved back a little, while Leorio carefully returned to his place, still glancing over at him.

The pressure behind Tonpa's eyes was fading, but the knowledge remained.

He could recall the movements one by one, knowing what should precede each and what came afterward. That was not mastery. His body had never tested the balance, the timing, or the effort required. He knew how he was supposed to perform the art. He did not yet know whether his muscles would cooperate.

A new window appeared.

[Finger Sutra.]

[Type: Heavenly Martial Art.]

[Origin: Unknown.]

[Description: A martial art developed by a mysterious individual. It relies on gathering power and concentrating it in the fingers.]

An actual martial art.

Despite the lingering headache, Tonpa's excitement returned. After all the absurdly named Skills and tricks that depended on convincing people he was a better man than he actually was, he had finally obtained something he could use when talking failed.

He reviewed the first movement in his mind.

Plant his feet. Adjust his stance. Extend his index finger.

He followed the sequence.

His expression froze.

Slowly, he went over the last part again.

There was a movement involving his backside.

One shake. Then a second, followed by a third.

He kept counting until he reached ten.

He waited for a note explaining that this was an optional exercise, an unusual way to correct his stance, or a joke the author had left in the wrong place.

There was nothing of the sort.

The shakes were what allowed energy to gather in his index finger before he unleashed the technique.

'Ten times? No… I must have misunderstood this part.'

He checked the instructions again.

Ten times.

With training and greater mastery, he could reduce the number of shakes required until a single one was enough.

Tonpa lowered his gaze to his hand and sat in silence.

Even complete mastery would not spare him the movement.

'Damn whoever invented this art. Couldn't you find a way to gather power that didn't involve shaking my ass?'

He looked toward the fire.

Killua was turning a piece of meat between his fingers while Gon said something to Leorio. Tonpa imagined standing before them, solemnly extending his finger, and then starting to shake.

Heat crept into his ears.

He did not need to imagine what Killua would say. He knew the boy would find enough material to make sure Tonpa never forgot the sight for the rest of his life.

He looked back at the window.

[Heavenly Martial Art.]

'Heavenly. Of course. Damn you, System. You left out the part that actually deserved a warning.'

He searched the knowledge for the creator's face or name and found nothing but stances, movements, and instructions. The bastard had not even left him a name to curse.

And yet the images of power gathering at a fingertip remained lodged in his mind.

He raised his hand before his face and extended his index finger. Slowly, he adjusted his elbow, trying to match the position he remembered, then bent his finger and tried again.

He gathered no power. He was only testing the movement of his arm.

His gaze settled on a small rock near the wall.

If the art worked, it might give him an effective way to strike an opponent. Perhaps its power could even make up for some of his lack of combat experience.

He almost moved, then stopped.

He had no idea how much damage an attempt might cause, or whether his body could withstand it after everything it had been through. On top of that, four pairs of eyes were only a few steps away.

He lowered his hand.

'I'll test it alone. I am not shaking my ass ten times in front of Killua and then giving him a shattered rock to keep as a souvenir.'

He dismissed the Finger Sutra's window and forced himself to consider his other rewards.

Nine thousand and eighty Nen Points. Two Free Stat Upgrades. And a Level Advancement still awaiting his approval.

Raising Speed to Rank B was tempting. So was Strength, now that the Finger Sutra had given him another reason to care about it. If the art depended on the power he gathered and directed, increasing Strength could be an investment in the art itself, rather than merely a way to punch people more convincingly.

'Nine thousand points, and I'm already thinking like a fighter. I should spend some before my condition gets worse.'

He was about to summon his Status Panel when Killua spoke.

"Are you finished?"

Tonpa looked up sharply.

All four of them were watching him from around the fire.

Gon raised his hand, extended his index finger, and adjusted his arm to imitate Tonpa's movements.

"You kept doing this, then smiling, then frowning. Is the venom still affecting you?"

He narrowed one eye and looked toward the rock.

"And then you looked at it like this."

"I told you the venom had gone to his head," Leorio said, some strength returning to his voice.

Killua pointed his finger at the same rock.

"Maybe he was trying to scare it into moving."

Kurapika looked from Tonpa's hand to his face.

"Has the headache really eased?"

Tonpa glanced down at his hand.

In his excitement over the rewards, he had forgotten that they could not see the System's windows. They had seen no book or instructions. They had seen an injured man staring into empty space, moving his fingers, and changing expressions for no apparent reason.

'Wonderful. I haven't even reached the humiliating part, and they're already questioning my sanity.'

He turned his embarrassment into a scowl.

"I was checking whether I could move my hand properly. The spider bites left my fingers stiff."

Killua repeated the finger movement.

"Of course. And was the rock part of the examination?"

Tonpa looked away.

He would choose his upgrades later, when he was alone and Killua could no longer turn every movement he made into something to mock. He postponed the Level Advancement as well. Remembering how his reward had been delayed aboard the airship, he had no desire to wait for another System surprise with all four of them watching.

Gon pointed to an empty spot beside the fire.

"Come eat with us. We saved you some meat."

Tonpa planted his palm on the ground and prepared to rise carefully. He expected his legs to feel heavy or the bite wounds to start burning again with the first movement.

Instead, he stood more easily than expected.

He paused, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His legs felt less heavy, and the burning in his skin had eased. When he turned his shoulder, however, pain pulled at his side, making him stop before he finished the movement.

His injuries had not disappeared, but his body felt less exhausted.

Was the antidote's effect becoming more apparent? Or had the hours spent unconscious given him more rest than he realized?

He had no answer, and he was hardly going to object to the improvement.

He let his shoulders sag and slowed his steps a little as he approached the fire. There was no reason to look any healthier while everyone was still worried about him.

Killua watched until he sat down.

"You were moving better a moment ago. Why did you start slowing down?"

"The body stops pretending to be strong once it knows help is nearby," Tonpa replied, taking a piece of meat.

"Or its owner starts pretending to be weak," Leorio said.

Tonpa ignored him and bit into the meat.

The hunger his excitement had obscured returned all at once. He did not realize how badly he needed food until he swallowed the first mouthful. When Gon offered him another piece, he accepted without protest.

He finished the first, started on the second, and was reaching for a third before he remembered that he was supposed to be an injured man who had barely regained consciousness.

He slowed his chewing a little.

Killua was watching with an irritating smile. Leorio's gaze moved between the meat and Tonpa's face, as though reconsidering his diagnosis.

"Looks like the spiders took your blood and left your appetite," Killua said.

"They were venomous, not uncivilized."

Gon laughed, and Leorio shook his head. Even Kurapika's stern expression softened slightly, though his eyes lingered on the torn part of Tonpa's shirt.

Tonpa noticed the look.

There was food in front of him, rewards waiting for him, and less pain than before. He decided to put everything else out of his mind until he finished eating.

The decision did not last long.

As soon as he swallowed his mouthful, Leorio set his bone aside and looked directly at him.

"All right. You've eaten, you're conscious, and you're not dead. Time to talk."

Tonpa stopped with his hand halfway to another piece.

"About what?"

"About what happened when you saw the spiders," Gon answered seriously.

"You tore your shirt and started shouting about spiders as though they'd done something to you personally," Killua added.

"And you promised to explain everything once we got out," Leorio said.

Silence settled around the fire.

Tonpa looked toward Kurapika. The blond young man was watching him quietly, but the tension had returned to his eyes.

Tonpa's fingers hovered over the food.

'Of course. I should have known the free meal would come with a bill.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 79: Borrowed Grief

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa's hand remained suspended above the last piece of meat.

Gon, Killua, and Leorio waited for his answer, while Kurapika remained silent. Their expressions held none of the passing curiosity he could dismiss with a cheap joke. They had watched him tear his shirt, shout about the Spiders, and threaten to kill and skin a dead man.

Worse, he had promised them an explanation.

'I should have lost my memory along with consciousness. That would have solved two problems at once.'

He slowly withdrew his hand from the food and lowered his gaze to the fire.

He could not tell them the truth. He could hardly explain that he knew Kurapika's tragedy from an anime he had watched in another world, then invented that ridiculous performance to exploit it and increase Kurapika's Trust in him.

But he did not need the truth.

He only needed a story that fit the lies he had already told.

A family of thieves. A childhood spent learning to steal. A sick mother. And now, a younger brother he had never mentioned before.

'Welcome to the family. I'm afraid you won't be staying long.'

Tonpa let the silence stretch before drawing a slow breath.

"I had a younger brother."

The mockery vanished from Killua's face.

Gon leaned toward him slightly. This time, Leorio did not interrupt.

Tonpa kept his eyes on the flames. He made no attempt to force a tremor into his voice. Exaggerated grief invited suspicion. Simple words left the listener's imagination to do the rest.

"My family made a living by stealing. When we were younger, they sent us on simple jobs together. Watching a place, opening a window, or carrying whatever the adults stole. My brother wasn't very good at it, but he insisted on coming with me."

He paused as though continuing required effort.

Inside, he was building the details as quickly as he spoke them.

"One night, they sent us to a merchant's warehouse. It was supposed to be empty. We climbed through a back window and took whatever we could carry. On our way out, my brother ran down one of the aisles and bumped into a man we hadn't seen come in."

Tonpa stared into the fire for a moment, then continued.

"The man said nothing. He didn't ask who we were or tell us to put anything back. He just hit him."

Leorio's jaw shifted slightly.

"What happened to your brother?" Gon asked quietly.

Tonpa remained silent for another second.

"He was dead before he hit the ground."

Grief settled over Gon's face. Kurapika kept his eyes fixed on Tonpa.

"Then the man raised his hand toward me. I couldn't move. I knew I was going to die. But he stopped before touching me and looked at me as though he'd found something amusing."

Tonpa lowered his voice further.

"He said, 'If you want to avenge your brother, get stronger. Then come and try.' After that, he turned his back on me and left."

'Killed my brother, then advised me to get stronger and come after him. A counterfeit Itachi from Naruto, minus the tragic backstory that gave him some dignity.'

He concealed his amusement behind a bitter twist of his mouth.

"I didn't know who he was then. When he turned, I only saw part of a spider tattoo beneath his clothes. Some time later, I overheard men from my family talking about a gang of thieves whose members wore the same tattoo."

Kurapika's fingers tightened against his knee.

Tonpa noticed but continued as though he had seen nothing.

"He was one of the Spiders."

Silence settled over the cave.

For a moment, even the crackling wood seemed quieter.

"I wanted to hunt them down, but I was weak. I still am."

Tonpa looked at his hand and slowly closed it into a fist. His torn shirt and the bite marks still visible on his skin completed the picture with little effort on his part.

"All I could do was collect rumors and wait. I thought I'd had it under control for years. But when I saw those spiders crawling over that man in the cave…"

He let the sentence die and closed his eyes for a moment.

"I remembered my brother. And I lost control."

'And a perfectly serviceable shirt. Let's not forget the real victim.'

When he opened his eyes, Gon was watching him with unmistakable sadness. Leorio had lowered his head, and Killua's mocking smile was gone.

"I'm sorry," Gon said.

"You didn't have to force yourself to tell us now," Leorio added.

Killua remained silent for several seconds before speaking.

"The man who killed your brother… Do you know his number?"

Tonpa shook his head.

"I didn't see the whole tattoo."

That answer was safer than inventing a number that might come back to strangle him later.

"Do you remember what he looked like?" Kurapika asked.

Tonpa rubbed his thumb over his knuckles and took his time answering.

"I saw his face, but I don't trust my memory enough to describe it anymore. Whenever I try to remember it, I see the blow instead."

Kurapika watched him for a moment, then relaxed his fingers slightly.

"I understand your reaction now."

His voice carried something deeper than ordinary sympathy. Something that made Gon and Leorio turn toward him, while Tonpa sensed the arrival of the moment he had been waiting for.

Before he could take advantage of it, the System chimed.

Ding!

[Group Deception Registered.]

[Nen Points +50]

[Experience Points +50]

[Total Nen Points: 9,130]

[Experience Points: 10,770/5,400]

Fifty whole points for a brother who had existed for a few minutes inside a story.

'Farewell, little brother. Your contribution to the family budget was appreciated.'

Tonpa dismissed the windows and looked up at Kurapika. He kept the grief on his face, adding a little seriousness.

"I've told you what happened to me."

He paused, then continued.

"And you said you'd tell us how you knew about the Spiders."

Everyone turned toward Kurapika.

Leorio looked between the two of them, then asked him:

"You know something about them too?"

Kurapika did not answer immediately. He watched the fire, its light reflected in his eyes. For a moment, he looked as though he regretted his promise. Then he breathed slowly and relaxed his hand against his knee.

"I'm the last survivor of the Kurta Clan."

Gon frowned at the name, as though he did not recognize it. Leorio's expression shifted slightly, suggesting he had heard it before.

Kurapika continued.

"When members of my clan experience intense emotions, our eyes turn scarlet. Some people considered it one of the most beautiful colors in the world. They collected our eyes as though they were works of art."

Anger gradually rose in his voice, though he remained seated.

"The Spiders attacked our village years ago. They killed everyone, then took their eyes to sell."

The last trace of humor vanished from around the fire.

No one asked how anyone could do that to an entire village. The answer was clear in Kurapika's voice. These were no ordinary thieves, and they had left almost no one alive.

For once, Tonpa found that his silence required no acting. The story of the brother he had invented minutes earlier suddenly felt like a counterfeit coin placed beside a real tragedy. He was accustomed to selling false stories, but he did not like hearing this one alongside Kurapika's.

'This isn't guilt. The venom must have left some strange side effects.'

Gon clenched his fists. Leorio muttered a curse. Killua remained still, but his gaze had sharpened.

Tonpa watched Kurapika in silence.

He already knew this story. He knew about the clan, the Scarlet Eyes, and the Spiders. He even knew some of the decisions Kurapika would make before Kurapika himself knew them.

'And yet I have to look as though I'm hearing all of this for the first time. Knowing the future is a profession with far too many reruns.'

"I entered the Hunter Exam to obtain what I need to pursue them and recover my clan's eyes," Kurapika said. "I won't stop until I make the Spiders answer for what they did."

His final words were quiet, but the anger beneath them seemed stronger than any shout.

Tonpa lowered his head slightly.

"I won't ask you to forget. And I won't tell you revenge isn't worth it."

He chose his words carefully. This time, he did not need to invent anything new. He only needed to say something Kurapika could believe.

"But don't let your anger get you killed before you reach them. The Spiders won't lose anything if you get yourself killed chasing them."

Kurapika looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

"The same goes for you."

Tonpa almost smiled at the irony.

"I'll try."

"You won't have to do it alone," Gon said at once. "If we can help, we will."

Tonpa looked at him. The boy had not hesitated. He had not asked how many Spiders there were or how strong they were before offering his help to two people, one of whom was only pretending to hunt a gang of killers.

'And that is exactly what will get you killed one day if you don't keep making friends with monsters stronger than you.'

"Speak for yourself," Killua said. After a moment, he added, "But going after a group like that alone would be stupid."

Leorio raised an eyebrow at him.

"Is that your way of offering to help?"

"I didn't offer anything."

"Of course not."

The conversation gradually turned to less painful details. Gon asked about the Kurta Clan, and Kurapika answered what he could. Tonpa listened and nodded at the appropriate moments, maintaining the expression of a man sharing in someone else's grief because it resembled his own.

Privately, he was trying to commit the details of his new brother to memory.

'A merchant's warehouse, a back window, a killer who left me alive, and a tattoo with no visible number. At this rate, I'll need records for the family I never had.'

After a while, the fire burned lower, and exhaustion began to show on everyone's faces. Leorio still needed rest. Continuing through the dark after the day they had endured would hardly be wise.

Kurapika checked the entrance, then returned to the fire.

"We'll rest here. Someone needs to stay awake."

Tonpa raised his head.

"I'll take the first watch."

Leorio looked at him.

"After everything that happened today?"

"I'll sit and watch the entrance. I'm not planning to wrestle anything."

The objection remained on Leorio's face, but Kurapika spoke.

"If you get tired, wake me. I'll take over."

Tonpa nodded.

They kept the fire low near the entrance. Gon lay down, and his breathing soon steadied. Leorio settled beside him, while Kurapika chose a spot facing the entrance. Killua closed his eyes with his back against the wall, though he looked ready to wake if so much as a speck of dust fell.

Tonpa settled against the rock where he could watch the entrance without having to move his injured side much.

He had no intention of sleeping.

Kurapika's words lingered in his mind, mingling with the image of a brother who had never existed. A faint unease pricked at him, and he buried it beneath calculations.

He did not intend to use the brother's story more than necessary, but a good lie did not disappear when the scene ended. It was now part of a past he would have to protect. One more detail someone might ask about at the worst possible moment.

Fifty additional points. Nine thousand, one hundred and thirty Nen Points. Two Free Stat Upgrades. And a Level Advancement available.

Calculations were more comfortable than a conscience.

Time passed slowly. Leorio's movements grew less frequent, then Kurapika stopped shifting in his place. Killua remained the problem. Even with his eyes closed, it was impossible to tell whether he was asleep or waiting for someone to make a mistake.

Tonpa remained still until an ember cracked sharply.

The boy did not move.

He waited longer, just in case.

The fire had dwindled to red embers, and a faint blue gloom filled the cave. Tonpa glanced at the entrance before returning his gaze to the faces around him.

No one moved.

He watched Killua a little longer, waiting for a sarcastic remark from the darkness.

None came.

His smile widened.

It seemed he finally had a little privacy.

Nine thousand, one hundred and thirty Nen Points. Two Free Stat Upgrades. And a Level Advancement awaiting his approval.

He summoned his Status Panel, its light appearing before his eyes in the darkness.

'Time to turn venom, lies, and bad decisions into something useful.'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 80: Suspicious Generosity

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

The Status Panel finished forming before Tonpa's eyes. He slowly stood and cast one last glance at his companions.

Gon was asleep near the embers, one hand resting on his bag. Leorio lay on his side, while Kurapika had chosen a position that would let him see the cave entrance the moment he opened his eyes. Killua remained against the wall, so still that Tonpa suspected he might be pretending to sleep too.

He waited several breaths.

No one moved.

His offer to keep watch had finally put an end to their questions. He wanted time to examine his rewards and upgrade his stats without someone interpreting every smile as another symptom of poisoning.

He returned his attention to the panel and forgot about the entrance.

[Level: 4]

[Experience Points: 10,770/5,400]

[Strength: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Speed: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Flexibility: D] [Upgrade: 1,000 Nen Points]

[Endurance: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Intelligence: D] [Upgrade: 1,000 Nen Points]

[Talent: E]

[Nen Points: 9,130]

[Free Stat Upgrades Available: 2]

Tonpa's eyes passed over the stats once, then returned to the top.

Strength, C. Speed, C. Flexibility, D.

Endurance…

He stopped.

Leaning closer to the panel, he read the line again.

[Endurance: C]

He did not trust what he was seeing. Before deciding his eyes were lying to him, he selected the stat.

A small window expanded beneath it.

[Endurance has naturally advanced from D to C.]

Tonpa's finger froze in front of the letter.

The last time he had checked his status, Endurance had been Rank D. He checked his remaining Free Stat Upgrades, then his balance, before looking at the bite marks on his arm.

'Were those spiders trying to train me? They could have charged less.'

[Reason for Advancement: The Host's body was exposed to a large quantity of venom, resisted its effects, and successfully recovered.]

[Trait Acquired: Poison Resistance.]

[Reduces the effects of poisons on the Host, depending on their type and potency.]

Tonpa read the last line slowly and felt an almost childish urge to laugh.

The experience had left him with more than pain. It had given his body something permanent.

'I was poisoned and gained Poison Resistance. By that logic, will throwing myself off a mountain give me Falling Resistance?'

He buried the idea before the System could hear it and turn it into a quest.

Raising Endurance from D to C would have cost a thousand Nen Points. He had obtained it because the spiders had nearly killed him.

Even so, he could not stop his excitement from growing. Stats were not doors that could only be opened with points or rewards. His body had advanced a rank on its own.

Before he could begin asking his usual questions of a System that never answered, another notice appeared.

[Stats can advance naturally through sufficient training, repeated use, or adaptation to harsh conditions.]

[The requirements for natural advancement increase with rank.]

Tonpa's smile widened.

Points were not the only way.

They were merely a shortcut.

He could train his Speed, strengthen his body, and practice the Finger Sutra until his stats improved without having to pay every time. For the first time, the System seemed a little less like a shop keeping his future locked behind its prices.

He immediately began considering the possibilities. Running every day might improve his Speed. Strength training would benefit both his body and the Finger Sutra. Even Flexibility could be improved without waiting to collect another thousand points. He did not know how much training it would take, or whether the System measured progress gradually or only acknowledged it once a stat crossed into the next rank. But simply knowing another path existed changed how he viewed every hour he spent outside combat.

Until now, he had thought of training as a punishment strong people inflicted on themselves because they did not have a System. Apparently, they might have the better financial strategy.

Then he looked at the bite marks on his arm, and his smile faded a little.

'If ordinary training takes time, and the fast version requires nearly dying, the System has managed to sell me on points again.'

At least he was more resistant to poison. That did not mean he could drink it instead of water or sleep among spiders, but he might have a better chance of surviving if another applicant tried to poison him.

More importantly, he had saved a thousand points.

Tonpa reopened the Free Stat Upgrade menu.

His gaze paused on Speed.

He was satisfied with it for now. It had not made him the fastest person on the island, but it had allowed him to snatch Badges and escape opponents he preferred to avoid.

The problem came when he had to hit someone.

He remembered his fist striking Hisoka's stomach. The pain traveling back into his wrist. The body that had not even bent. Without the distraction before the punch, he would have gained nothing worth mentioning.

'I reach my opponent, punch him, and somehow I'm the one in pain. That arrangement needs work.'

He moved to Strength.

He could improve Speed later. Right now, he wanted his punches to do more than inform his opponents that he was angry. The Finger Sutra gave him another reason. He was not going to endure the humiliation of its movements for a weak attack.

Two upgrades would take Strength from C to B, then from B to A.

Ten thousand points saved on the first. A hundred thousand on the second.

A full hundred and ten thousand points.

He looked at his balance, then back at the number of Free Stat Upgrades.

'Finally, a reward I can put to proper use.'

He focused on Strength.

[Would you like to use a Free Stat Upgrade?]

[Upgrade Strength from C to B.]

[Yes/No]

He selected Yes.

His entire body seized at once.

Tonpa clenched his jaw to keep from making a sound. A dense pressure spread from his bones into his muscles, nothing like the gentle warmth of his previous upgrades. It felt as though every tendon in his body were being pulled to its limit, then secured back in place, stronger than before.

His knees bent, and he lowered himself until one rested on the ground. As the pressure began to ease, he placed his palm against the stone to steady himself.

A faint sound reached his ears.

Tonpa froze, then lifted his hand.

Fine cracks spread beneath the spot where his fingers had pressed.

He stared at them, his mouth slightly open.

'I didn't even hit it.'

He raised his head toward his companions.

The sound did not seem to have woken anyone.

He carefully moved his fingers. Suddenly, the sleeping bodies around him looked far more fragile than he wanted them to.

When his Strength had risen from D to C, the improvement had been obvious. This time, the difference felt immeasurable. He had more than greater strength now. He would have to be careful not to apply the same effort he was used to in the wrong situation.

The confirmation appeared.

[Strength: B]

[Free Stat Upgrades Available: 1]

He rose carefully, relying on his legs and avoiding the use of his hands for support.

Then he selected Strength again.

If B had done this, what would A do?

His smile began to widen as he waited for the confirmation prompt.

A different window appeared.

[Unable to perform upgrade.]

His smile stopped.

[Advancing Strength to Rank A requires Endurance of Rank B or higher.]

[Current Endurance: C.]

[The Free Stat Upgrade has not been consumed.]

Tonpa stared at the message, then read it again.

'Damn you. You waited until I was reaching for those hundred thousand points to mention this?'

His gaze shifted to Endurance.

He could use his remaining upgrade to raise it to B. Then his body would be ready for the Strength he no longer had a free upgrade to obtain.

He pressed his lips together.

He needed two more upgrades.

He had one.

'Where was this requirement when I upgraded my stats before?'

No answer appeared.

He moved his hand in irritation, and his eyes stopped on the cracks beneath his feet.

His earlier upgrades had never made him afraid to lean against the ground. Even the jump from D to C had not produced such an enormous difference. Perhaps the smaller increases had been within what his body could handle. The power beyond B might require more than muscles capable of producing it.

He looked at his palm and slowly closed his hand.

'Wonderful. I can have the strength, provided I buy a body that can survive using it first.'

There was another solution.

He was only eight hundred and seventy points short of buying the Endurance upgrade. He could hold on to the free reward until he earned them, then raise Strength to A as planned.

He considered that for a moment.

Then his gaze moved to Speed.

He had been satisfied with it when it accompanied his previous Strength. But his fist could now inflict greater damage. Reaching an opponent faster would help him use it, as would getting out of the way before the counterattack landed.

His new Strength would not make up for missing the opportunity to hit someone.

He looked at the cracks again.

'Smashing the rock my opponent was standing in front of a moment ago won't do me much good.'

Waiting would save more points. There was no doubt about that. But until he earned the rest, it would leave him with his new Strength and his old Speed, on an island where he had already nearly died more than once.

Upgrading Speed now would give him a better way to use that Strength—and a better fallback if it proved insufficient.

He exhaled through his nose, irritated by where the calculation had led him.

'Ninety thousand points in savings, given up so I can be better prepared for the next disaster. It had better take its time arriving.'

He selected Speed.

A stronger punch, a better chance of landing it, and faster feet if it failed to produce the desired result. He would need training to learn how to use the two together, but he preferred to start now.

'And if he doesn't like the punch, I won't stay to hear his complaint.'

[Would you like to use a Free Stat Upgrade?]

[Upgrade Speed from C to B.]

[Yes/No]

He selected Yes.

Heat surged into his legs, then traveled up his spine to the back of his head.

A tingling sensation ran down both legs and vanished.

He moved one foot to test it. It responded faster than expected and nearly struck a rock in front of him. He pulled it back at once, but the second movement was faster than the first.

He stood still after both movements, stunned by a body that had corrected its mistake before he fully understood it.

'If this is Rank B Speed, I've spent my entire life standing in a queue.'

[Speed: B]

[Free Stat Upgrades Available: 0]

Tonpa carefully closed and opened his fist.

He felt as though he were overflowing with power. The body he had awakened in—weak, heavy, and complaining after every run—now possessed both Strength and Speed at Rank B.

His frustration over the upgrade he had missed eased a little.

And he was not finished.

He focused on Flexibility.

[Would you like to upgrade Flexibility from D to C?]

[Cost: 1,000 Nen Points.]

He accepted.

[Flexibility upgraded from D to C.]

Tonpa slowly rotated his shoulder. The joint moved with unfamiliar ease, but he stopped when pain pulled at his side.

He remained still for a moment, then tried a smaller movement. The injury had not disappeared, but his body offered noticeably less resistance. He bent his knees and lowered himself slightly, careful not to strain his side. A position that had once required effort now felt easier.

He straightened, his eyes wide with surprise.

'Excellent. I can now escape trouble at more angles.'

He moved to Intelligence.

[Would you like to upgrade Intelligence from D to C?]

[Cost: 1,000 Nen Points.]

He accepted again.

[Intelligence upgraded from D to C.]

The day's details passed through his mind at once: the cave's location, the number of Badges, the lie about his brother, the System's rewards, and the flaws in his plan.

These were not new memories, but he could see them arranged through connections he had not noticed before.

His eyebrows rose.

'Wonderful. I can now understand my bad decisions with scientific precision.'

He looked at Talent.

[Talent: E]

[This stat cannot be upgraded directly.]

'Of course. Letting me buy perfection all at once would have upset you.'

He summoned his full Status Panel again.

[Level: 4]

[Experience Points: 10,770/5,400]

[Strength: B] [Upgrade: 100,000 Nen Points]

[Speed: B] [Upgrade: 100,000 Nen Points]

[Flexibility: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Endurance: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Intelligence: C] [Upgrade: 10,000 Nen Points]

[Talent: E]

[Nen Points: 7,130]

[Free Stat Upgrades Available: 0]

[Trait: Poison Resistance]

Tonpa read the list slowly.

Only hours earlier, he had been unable to stand. Killua had needed to catch him before he hit the ground. A few days before that, his best plan for danger had been to run until he found someone slower.

Now, he felt as though he had replaced his entire body while keeping the same face to continue ruining his reputation.

The changes did not feel as separate as he had expected. His new Strength inhabited a more flexible body. His fatigue had eased, and the differences had become easier to follow and understand. Even standing felt different. He was lighter on his feet, steadier through his shoulders, and better able to go from stillness to movement.

For a moment, he had the strange feeling that the body he had awakened in was finally becoming his. It was no longer merely a miserable vessel he had found himself trapped inside. It was a tool he had rebuilt, one rank at a time.

Tonpa closed his fist, feeling enough power to turn his smile into something more sinister.

Hisoka's face appeared in his mind.

'I'm coming for you. And I'll skin you with my own hands.'

His courage lasted two seconds before he remembered that he had not tested Rank B Strength, had not mastered the Finger Sutra, and still could not use Nen beyond a rudimentary Zetsu that might fail if he sneezed.

'Impressive. Arrogance alone jumped from E to S.'

He looked at his hands and laughed inwardly.

He had not expected to be this talented.

Then he corrected the thought with a small measure of honesty.

'Talented, and funded by nine thousand points, two rewards, and a thorough poisoning.'

Excitement kept urging him to move. He wanted to leave the cave, find a distant rock, and test his Speed, Strength, and Finger Sutra far from the sleeping heads around him. He carefully headed toward the entrance but stopped after his second step.

An option was blinking at the edge of his vision.

[Level Advancement Available.]

He had nearly forgotten it while absorbed in his stats.

His Experience Points exceeded the requirement by more than five thousand. All he needed to do was accept, and he would advance from Level 4 to Level 5.

He returned to his place beside the wall and slowly sat down.

At Level 3, he had received a Free Stat Upgrade and the Skill Upgrade System. At Level 4, he had received another free upgrade and Spatial Storage. If the System continued being this generous, Level 5 might give him another upgrade.

His eyes moved to Endurance.

One more free upgrade would raise it to B and satisfy the requirement that had ruined his plan. It would not immediately grant him Rank A Strength, but it would save him ten thousand points and bring it closer.

Some satisfaction returned to his face.

He had not forgotten that every previous gift had come after a risk or a requirement the System had failed to explain properly. But at that moment, he was too wealthy and powerful to let caution do its job.

'Come on. Change the number, wait a little, then pretend you've remembered the gift. I know your routine now.'

He focused on the option.

[Level Advancement Requirements Met.]

[Would the Host like to advance to Level 5?]

[Yes/No]

He eagerly selected Yes.

The panel disappeared.

He waited for heat, pain, or the strange pressure that had accompanied some of his previous upgrades.

Nothing happened.

'Here we go again.'

Ding!

[The Host has advanced to Level 5.]

[Experience Points: 10,770/16,200]

[The reward for reaching Level 5 has been determined.]

Tonpa leaned forward, waiting for the words he remembered from his previous two Level Advancements.

Golden light gathered beneath the message.

[The Host has obtained…]

His smile began to widen. He could almost see the words Free Stat Upgrade before the message was complete.

But what appeared next was not a stat upgrade.

[Item…]

His smile froze.

The line finished forming before his eyes.

[The Host has obtained an extremely rare item.]

Tonpa forgot to breathe.

'…An extremely rare item?'

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 81: Talent in a Capsule

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •
​

Tonpa kept staring at the notification, momentarily forgetting the rock he had intended to go outside and smash.

[The Host has obtained an extremely rare item.]

The System was not usually generous. When it finally decided to be, it chose the middle of the night, with Tonpa surrounded by four people—one of whom might wake up if a speck of dust breathed too loudly.

Another window appeared beneath the notification.

[Would the Host like to receive the item?]

[Yes/No]

Tonpa raised an eyebrow.

'No. Keep it until I find someone more deserving.'

He selected Yes before the System could realize that its question was too stupid to deserve an answer.

Ding!

[Item Received: Nen Elixir.]

Tonpa stopped breathing for a moment.

'Nen… Elixir?'

The window moved closer, and another line appeared beneath the name.

[Rarity: Extremely Rare.]

[Effect: Raises the user's Talent by one rank.]

He read the line once.

Then he read it again, slowly, making sure his excitement had not supplied the words he wanted to see.

It raised Talent by an entire rank.

He reopened his Status Panel, and his eyes settled on the one stat that had mocked him ever since the System appeared.

[Talent: E]

[This stat cannot be upgraded directly.]

A few minutes earlier, he had looked at that line and reluctantly accepted that Talent could not be bought. Now the System had announced a reward capable of doing what his Nen Points could not.

The corners of his mouth lifted before he remembered the sleepers around him and lowered his head, pretending to examine the marks the venom had left on his arm.

'Over seven thousand points, practically a new body, and now better Talent. If the System keeps being this generous, I'll start looking for the trap beneath the gifts.'

A red light flashed in his palm.

When it faded, a small glass capsule rested between his fingers. It was no longer than the tip of his thumb and contained a dark red liquid that moved sluggishly, thicker than water and clearer than blood.

He raised it toward the glow of the embers, then looked back at the name suspended before him.

[Nen Elixir.]

'At least if it's poisoned, I gained Poison Resistance a few minutes ago. An excellent plan, provided the reward doesn't have a sense of humor.'

He turned the capsule between his fingers, then glanced at Killua. The boy's eyes remained closed, his back against the wall. Neither Gon nor Kurapika moved. Leorio let out a brief snore that quickly stopped.

There would be no better opportunity.

Tonpa carefully opened the capsule and brought it to his nose. It had almost no smell, apart from a faint trace of something like herbs after rain.

'If I'd tried selling this in my previous life, I would have needed a sales page longer than my fake family history.'

The rim touched his lips.

He hesitated for a single moment.

Then he swallowed all of it.

The liquid was cold in his mouth, but it turned pleasantly warm as soon as it reached his throat. The sensation flowed through his chest and stomach, then slowly spread into his limbs. It felt nothing like the intense pressure of raising Strength to B, or the heat that had surged into his legs when he upgraded Speed.

It was gentler.

And deeper.

He sent the empty capsule into Spatial Storage, then rested his hand on his knee.

It felt as though something inside his body had finally loosened. Until now, all he could do with his aura was shut off its flow through a rudimentary Zetsu. Now it felt clearer at the edges of his awareness. Not stronger, but easier to sense, as though the hinges of a heavy door had been oiled for the first time.

Tonpa closed his eyes, enjoying the relief.

The pleasure lasted three seconds.

Then the smell reached him.

His eyes snapped open, and he looked at his arms. A thin film of dark sweat had appeared on his skin. Sticky gray impurities gathered around his neck and on his palms, giving off a stench that made him turn his face away from his own body.

Tonpa silently cursed the original Tonpa, then cursed the body that managed to turn every upgrade into a cleaning project.

'What was the original Tonpa doing with this body? Eating out of the applicants' garbage?'

'Fine, some of the damage might be recent. But I'll blame him out of respect for chronological order.'

Gon stirred near the embers, his nose wrinkling.

Tonpa froze.

The boy remained asleep.

Tonpa tore a piece from the hem of his ruined shirt and quickly wiped his neck, palms, and arms. He folded the cloth around the grime and immediately sent it into Spatial Storage, leaving the problem of cleaning it to a future version of himself who would be less pleased with the reward.

The smell faded enough for him to breathe again.

Ding!

[Nen Elixir successfully consumed.]

[Talent: E → D]

Tonpa fixed his eyes on the new letter.

D.

For the first time, his Talent was no longer stuck at Rank E. He had not become a Nen prodigy, and aura had not erupted from his body. But he had officially escaped the rank that had always seemed like the System's polite way of calling him hopeless.

Before he could enjoy that for long, the Nen section of his Status Panel flickered.

The red numbers that had appeared when he reached Level 2—and had irritated him whenever he remembered them—began changing one after another.

[Ten: 0%] [10% → 28%]

[Zetsu: 2%] [10% → 28%]

[Ren: 0%] [10% → 28%]

[Hatsu: 0%] [10% → 28%]

Tonpa's eyes widened.

Twenty-eight percent.

The System had never confirmed that the red numbers represented the limits of his Talent, but he had suspected it ever since they appeared. Now, the moment his Talent rose by one rank, all four numbers had jumped from ten to twenty-eight.

The increase had not granted him free mastery. Three techniques remained at zero, and Zetsu was still at two percent. But the change strengthened his suspicion that those numbers were connected to his Talent and what he could achieve through training.

If he was right, the capsule had opened a wider path without sparing him the effort of walking it.

'Thank you.'

He waited a moment, then added silently:

'Don't get used to hearing that.'

He dismissed the elixir's window but did not close the System yet. Remembering the looks the others had given him after he woke up, he opened the Trust record to see how much had changed since he last checked.

No chime sounded. The names appeared quietly before him, each accompanied by its previous and current percentage.

[Gon Freecss's Trust: 30% → 38%]

[Killua Zoldyck's Trust: 19% → 27%]

[Kurapika's Trust: 20% → 28%]

[Leorio's Trust: 25% → 33%]

Tonpa remained still, then looked at the sleepers one by one.

Eight percentage points from each of them.

The increase had not come from the story about his brother. No new Trust notification had appeared afterward. Those percentages had already risen before he told it.

When he approached the corpse guarded by spiders, suffered their bites, and lost consciousness holding the antidote Leorio needed, they had seen something entirely different from what had been going through his head.

'I said I had a plan, let the spiders eat me, and passed out. Apparently, the difference between sacrifice and stupidity depends on where you're watching from.'

Killua's jump from nineteen to twenty-seven explained the quest completion notification that had been waiting when Tonpa woke up. The other three had moved even further beyond the requirement.

'All that earlier nonsense paid off in the end. It just needed real venom and several hours of unconsciousness.'

He closed the panel, then carefully stood.

He needed to test the body he had spent a fortune on before anyone began to stir—or Killua woke up and decided to watch him. He moved slowly toward the cave entrance, choosing spots clear of loose stones.

As he passed Killua, he stopped.

The boy's breathing had not changed.

Tonpa shut off his aura with Zetsu.

This time, it responded more quickly. He did not have to chase down the small leaks around his shoulders and arms as he usually did. His Zetsu remained far from perfect, with mastery still at only two percent, but his aura drew inward so smoothly that he understood the effect of his improved Talent for the first time.

'So I didn't pay the price of that smell just for a prettier letter.'

He took short steps, maintaining his concentration until he passed through the entrance.

The cold night air greeted him, carrying the remaining smell away from the cave. About ten seconds after he started moving, he felt aura begin leaking around his arms again. He stopped beside a rock and let the attempt end before trying to fix it distracted him from his surroundings.

Shutting off his aura had become easier. Maintaining it while moving still needed practice.

He stood there for a few moments, listening to the trees and the darkness. He saw no other fires and heard no human footsteps, but the island still held applicants hunting one another for Badges.

Even when Zetsu worked, it concealed his aura—not his body, his footsteps, or his new smell.

He moved carefully between the rocks, following a winding route through their shadows without going far enough to lose his way back. Rank B Speed urged him to break into a run, but he resisted until he found a suitable place.

A rocky slope stretched before him, surrounded by scattered trees. Stones of various sizes covered the ground, and he could see no fresh footprints in the dirt.

He waited a full minute.

Nothing moved.

He chose a large rock near the bottom of the slope. It reached roughly to his waist, with half of it buried in the ground. He estimated that the exposed portion alone weighed about half a ton.

He stood before it and stretched his fingers.

He did not want to use the Finger Sutra yet. First, he needed to know what his new Strength could do with an ordinary punch.

He planted his feet and turned his waist slightly.

Pain pulled at his side, stopping him.

He looked at the bandages showing beneath his shirt, then let out a short breath through his nose.

'Right. The wound didn't get its share of the rewards.'

He adjusted his stance, reduced the twist, and drove a straight punch into the middle of the rock.

The crack of the impact rang across the slope.

Fractures branched out from his fist, and the rock broke apart into several large chunks. Two slid across the dirt as smaller stones scattered around his feet.

It was louder than he had expected.

Tonpa pulled his hand back and immediately turned toward the route leading to the cave. He listened to the darkness, cursing his enthusiasm, while a small fragment rolled to a stop beside his shoe.

He heard no movement or approaching footsteps, but the irony did not escape him.

'Rank B Strength is excellent. My ability to conduct a secret test just dropped to F.'

He waited a little longer before looking back at his fist.

His skin was not bleeding.

His knuckles were intact.

He had not even felt the pain he had expected from hitting stone with his bare hand.

He opened and closed his fingers once, then looked at what remained of the rock.

A laugh rose in his throat. He swallowed it before it could carry through the trees to the cave.

'I smashed half a ton, and the only casualty was my old opinion of myself.'

He stepped back several paces and tested his legs.

Choosing two rocks a considerable distance apart, he fixed his eyes on the second and launched himself forward.

The first vanished from beside him.

The second approached faster than he expected.

He planted his foot to stop, but his momentum carried him past the point he had chosen. At the last moment, he swerved around the rock, swinging several meters wide before he could slow down.

His foot slipped on loose gravel. He spread his arms, regained his balance, and stood staring at how far he had overshot.

His eyes widened.

Rank C Speed had not been slow. It had made him faster than most ordinary applicants and allowed him to escape situations in which the original Tonpa would have needed a slower victim.

Rank B was something else.

'Wonderful. I can reach the rock before I remember how to stop.'

He tried again, using less force this time and starting to slow down earlier. He stopped closer to where he intended, though he still needed an extra step to steady himself.

For the next attempt, he chose a route between three widely spaced rocks.

His improved Flexibility helped him turn, but the first corner took him wider than he intended. He slowed before the second, then rounded the third more carefully.

His body could make the movements.

The problem was that his judgment of distance and timing still worked at his old speed.

After several short attempts, he stopped on a low rock. His breathing remained steady, but the last turn had brought the ache back to his side. He rested a hand over it and waited for it to ease.

He did not need to reopen the wound to prove that his upgrades worked.

He looked at the rocks he had been weaving between, and excitement began crowding out caution again.

He suspected that, in raw speed, he might no longer be far behind the fastest applicants. Killua, Hisoka, Illumi, and Hanzo came to mind, but he had not measured his speed against any of theirs.

And what had happened at the second rock did little to convince him that arriving quickly amounted to a complete fighting skill.

'A few days ago, I picked someone slower so I could survive. Now I need someone faster to find out where my limits are.'

He stepped down from the rock and headed toward the far end of the slope.

A larger mass of stone stood there, joined to the mountainside itself. Breaking it with an ordinary punch was not what he had come to test.

He stopped before it.

Slowly, he raised his right hand.

The knowledge transferred from the book returned in clear detail: the placement of his feet, the angle of his arm, and the index finger at whose tip the power was meant to gather.

Then he remembered the movement that came before all of that.

His smile faded.

He looked behind him, then toward the trees on either side of the slope.

He saw no one.

'God damn whoever created this art—and the System for deciding I was the right person for it.'

He was prepared to accept pain, exhaustion, and even the possibility of failure.

Shaking his backside in front of a rock to gather power in his finger, however, remained difficult for his dignity to embrace.

He clenched his jaw and pointed his index finger at the stone.

He had come out here specifically to try it. He was not going back now just because some nameless man had invented a martial art that could not be practiced with dignity.

He planted his feet, then cast one last glance behind him.

'You'd better be worth the humiliation.'

Only the rock stood before him.

That, at least, made getting started a little easier.


_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

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Chapter 82: One Finger

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​

Tonpa remained before the mass of rock, his index finger pointed at it as the details of the Finger Sutra rose to the forefront of his memory.

Pointing his finger was not enough.

Ten full shakes.

He lowered his eyes to his waist, then looked back at the rock.

'Couldn't that bastard have chosen clapping? Even shouting would have left me some dignity.'

He planted his feet as the knowledge instructed and bent his knees slightly. He began the motion, then stopped before completing it.

The rock stood before him. The trees stood behind him. And there he was between them, preparing to shake his backside so he could fire an attack from his finger.

He did not need an audience to feel humiliated.

He closed his eyes and slowly exhaled.

'Damn the creator of this art, and the System for choosing it for me. I have a feeling those two know each other.'

He let the details settle into order, setting his irritation aside.

The Finger Sutra was an offensive martial art with ten levels. The first used a single finger of the practitioner's choice. The second added another, and each subsequent level continued the progression until all ten fingers could be used together.

Within the art, the index finger was no better than the little finger, nor was the thumb stronger than the ring finger. What determined the level was the number of fingers carrying the power when it was released.

With each additional finger, that power did not simply divide between them.

It increased, demanding more energy in turn.

As for the shakes, they were not merely some ridiculous requirement he could bypass once he understood the trick.

A beginner needed ten properly executed shakes to fully charge the first level. As his control improved, he could gather and contain the same power with fewer, until a single shake was enough.

Stopping at the ninth shake did not count as progress.

It meant an incomplete charge.

Once he mastered charging and releasing the attack with a single shake, he would be qualified to begin learning the second level, where he would start again with ten.

Tonpa looked at his finger, then curled the others more tightly.

'So surviving the humiliation once isn't enough. I have to master it.'

The knowledge carried a warning clearer than the rest of the instructions. Attempting a higher level before mastering the previous one could cause the accumulated power to run wild inside his body instead of traveling toward the target.

It was more than an attack failing.

The energy could tear through the tissues along its path, or erupt before he released it and kill him.

Mastery was only one requirement. His body also needed enough energy to support the level he used. Knowing the method did not give him the resources to perform it.

Tonpa loosened his fist a little.

One finger, then.

He had made enough bad decisions for one day.

He reviewed the stance for releasing the attack and the path the power would follow. The Sutra did not require him to use Ten or Ren. What the knowledge called "internal power" was his body's energy, gathered through the required motion and directed through his waist, back, shoulder, and arm until it settled at his fingertip.

The instructions were precise about gathering, concentrating, and releasing that power.

But none of the knowledge he had received taught him how to dodge a punch or evade a knife. The Sutra contained no evasive footwork or movement style he could follow in combat.

Tonpa looked at his feet, then at the rock.

Nothing in the instructions required him to remain in one place. Perhaps he could perform the shakes while moving, provided he maintained the proper motion and the flow of power.

That was more bearable than standing here silently shaking his backside.

'I'll move as though I'm dodging an attack. At least it'll look like I'm having trouble with an opponent, not my trousers.'

The idea was not part of the Sutra. It was his own attempt to make using it less embarrassing—and perhaps less dangerous if he ever had to charge it in front of someone trying to kill him.

Ever since he woke up in Tonpa's body, his problem had been greater than weak stats. Upgrades had given him Strength, then Speed, Flexibility, and Endurance, but he had never possessed a real way to combine them in a fight. He could punch, run, and set traps. Someone like Bodoro, however, could read his stance before he even raised a hand.

The Sutra might give him a dangerous attack.

Staying out of his opponent's reach until it was ready was something he would have to learn himself.

He moved several steps away from the rock.

He drew a slow breath.

In his imagination, Bodoro appeared before him, standing straight with both fists steady. Tonpa remembered the punch the old man had thrown at Karto, how it had driven forward from his shoulder without a wasted movement.

The imagined fist shot toward his face.

Tonpa moved his right foot back, pivoted on the ball of it, and lowered his shoulder. The phantom attack passed beside his cheek, and he followed the dodge with the motion the Sutra required.

Or tried to.

He had cut it too short, merely turning his hips as he stepped.

Nothing gathered.

He stopped and gritted his teeth.

The instructions told him exactly what he had done wrong. Shifting his feet was no substitute for the required shake, however much more respectable it looked.

'Even cheating at shaking my backside is forbidden. Strict rules indeed.'

He reset his stance, then replaced Bodoro with an image of Karto. A short knife drove toward his ribs, followed by a quick turn aimed at his neck.

Tonpa ducked beneath the imagined blade, but twisted further than his injured side allowed.

Pain pulled at the wound.

He stopped at once and pressed a hand over the bandages.

The pain lingered briefly before easing. It was not sharp enough to bring him down, but it reminded him that his new body still carried an old injury.

He adjusted the distance between his feet and reduced the twist of his torso. He could take an extra step instead of forcing his waist into a painful angle.

He tried the dodge again.

This time, he attempted to escape the phantom knife's path with two crossing steps, but his heel caught behind his other leg. He awkwardly untangled his feet and had to take another step sideways to keep from falling.

For a moment, he stared down at them.

Rank B Speed let him move, and Rank C Flexibility allowed the necessary angles, but imagining a dodge was not enough to master it.

'An opponent from my own imagination, and I nearly fell before he touched me. A promising start.'

He slowed down.

There was no real opponent forcing him to hurry.

He returned to his starting position, keeping his right index finger extended while his other hand rested near his chest.

He imagined Bodoro's punch.

He stepped back at an angle and completed a full shake as his feet settled.

'One.'

A faint tension formed in his lower back, distinct from the pain in his side.

He moved left, then repeated the shake before shifting his weight to the other foot.

'Two.'

The absurdity had not disappeared, but it was less obvious between the steps. He could imagine it as an unusual dodge if he avoided looking at the part doing the actual work.

On the third, he felt a faint warmth begin to gather.

He continued.

He slipped beneath an imagined blow without ducking as low as before and completed the fourth. Then he moved away with a short step and followed it with the fifth.

The steps themselves did not build the charge. Each time he completed the required shake, he felt power gather. When he merely changed position, the sensation remained unchanged.

'Five. Don't stop now. You've already paid half the price in dignity.'

He completed the sixth and seventh, keeping his breathing steady.

Pressure gathered in his lower back, then began flowing toward his right shoulder. No light appeared around his body, and the rocks before him did not change, but his arm grew a little heavier with each correctly executed motion.

On the eighth, his curled fingers trembled.

On the ninth, he felt the pressure reach his wrist.

He looked up at the rock.

The mass jutted from the slope, joined to it along its left edge. He shifted a step until he faced the protruding section. Beyond it lay a narrow gap, then a tree among the rocks.

He fixed his aim.

One shake remained.

He performed it as he shifted his weight onto his leading foot.

'Ten.'

Power surged into his index finger.

The skin tightened, as though something too large for it were trying to pass through.

The knowledge told him he could disperse the power now and end the attempt without firing.

He looked at the rock.

'I came here to find out what you can do, not learn how to retreat from my own finger.'

He adjusted his shoulder, avoiding a broad twist that would pull at his side. Keeping his other fingers curled, he aimed his index finger at the middle of the protruding section.

He thrust his arm forward.

His index finger stiffened. Pressure crowded into its tip until he thought the skin might split.

'Out.'

He released the power.

Snap!

A sharp report tore through the silence. Dust split before his hand, and a narrow wave shot through it, warping the air along its path.

It struck the rock.

CRASH!

Fragments burst from the point of impact, and a cloud of dust erupted behind the stone. The sound echoed among the rocks as Tonpa's eyes widened.

The wave had not rebounded.

It had gone through.

It crossed the gap to the tree behind the rock and struck the middle of the trunk with a muffled boom. Bark flew, and the branches shuddered violently.

CRAAACK!

The sound of tearing wood split the air. A crack spread across the trunk from the point of impact, and the upper section tilted under the weight of its branches.

Torn fibers held it in place for a moment.

Then they snapped.

The tree crashed backward. Its branches struck the ground in a succession of cracks, leaves flew over the rocks, and small stones tumbled down the slope.

Tonpa remained with his arm extended.

It had taken only moments, but his eyes kept moving between the rock and the tree, trying to catch up with what had happened.

As the dust thinned, the hole appeared.

Round. Narrow. Roughly the size of a coin.

He stared at it, then shifted slightly until he could look straight through.

Beyond it, he saw what remained of the trunk.

'I… did that?'

He slowly lowered his hand.

That was the result of the first level.

One finger.

A smile spread across his face before he could stop it.

'If one finger can do that, what does the tenth level do? Punch through a mountain and demand an apology from the rock behind it?'

He turned toward another mass of stone, excitement beginning to erase what remained of his caution. He wanted to repeat the attempt, then learn to gather the power with fewer shakes and find out whether he could release it while moving.

He lifted his foot to return to his starting stance.

His leg gave out.

His knee hit the ground, and he had to plant his palm among the loose stones to avoid falling on his face. His breath abruptly caught. Exhaustion flooded his muscles all at once, as though he had run the entire First Phase without stopping.

His eyes widened as he tried to get up.

His body did not respond at once.

His right arm was heavy, and his index finger would not stop trembling. He felt no tearing pain in it, but the strength that had filled his limbs moments earlier was gone, leaving an aching emptiness and a wave of nausea.

'What is this? I used one finger. Why does my body feel as though I donated the rest of my organs?'

The warning returned to his mind, clearer now than when he had read it in his excitement.

The Sutra did not create power from nothing.

The shakes gathered his body's energy and allowed him to compress it, but they did not pay the cost of the attack for him. Completing the required number let him release the technique. It did not automatically make him efficient at using his energy.

His body was far stronger than it had been, but he had not trained it to handle this flow of power or learned to regulate how much he sent through it. He had been so focused on successfully building the charge that he poured more into the attack than he could comfortably bear.

'Wonderful. I got a bullet, but the gun uses me as ammunition.'

He raised his head toward the hole.

If he tried using two fingers now, losing control would not be his only problem.

The second level required more energy than his body currently possessed. Forcing himself to keep charging would not create what he lacked. It would drain what kept him moving and breathing, and might kill him before the attack was complete.

Even if he gained enough energy one day, he would not be able to skip the training. Power he did not know how to control could run wild inside his arm instead of leaving it.

He looked at his trembling index finger and kept the others out of any further experiments.

'Mastering one finger lets me learn to use two. Surviving it is another matter. Even dying has prerequisites.'

He slowly pushed himself up until he could sit on a low rock. The movement pulled at his side, so he kept a hand over it and waited.

Gradually, his breathing slowed.

The exhaustion did not disappear, but his legs began responding again. He tried moving the fingers of his right hand. They moved, though the index finger still trembled slightly.

The Sutra was not an ability he could fire off whenever someone annoyed him.

In his current state, a first-level attack might end a fight if it hit. If it missed, or his opponent had a companion nearby, it would leave him easy prey.

A surprise weapon, then.

He needed time to charge it, a target he could hit, and an escape route that would keep him from collapsing in front of someone else afterward.

'Either the attack hits, or I use what's left of my dignity to convince my opponent that kneeling is part of the art.'

He studied his finger with more cautious satisfaction.

He had finally found an attack that could do more than his ordinary fist. With training, he might waste less energy and charge it faster, until he no longer had to perform ten full shakes while his opponent waited for a reason to kill him.

As for the second level, he would need better control and more energy.

Not more enthusiasm.

He had tested the benefits of enthusiasm enough.

Ding!

The System's chime suddenly pierced his thoughts.

Tonpa raised his head, expecting a notification about successfully using the Finger Sutra or making progress in its mastery.

A small window appeared before him.

[Killua Zoldyck's Status: Confused.]

The smile vanished from Tonpa's face.

He read the name again.

A slow chill traveled from his neck down his back.

'Why is the System telling me his status now?'

He had heard no footsteps.

He had noticed no rustle of clothing or scrape of a stone behind him.

But a familiar voice reached him from among the rocks.

"You've finally stopped pretending."

_______________________________

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[Boumargood]

• ────────── ◆ ────────── •

Chapter 83: Behind the Cold Expression

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​

Tonpa slowly turned toward the voice.

Killua sat on a tall rock behind him, off to the left, with one knee raised and an arm resting on it. Moonlight caught his white hair, and a mocking smile sat on his face.

Tonpa had no idea how long he had been there.

That alone was a problem.

He had used Zetsu for his first few steps out of the cave, then continued cautiously after he could no longer maintain it. He had checked the path more than once and gone far enough, or so he had thought, to test his strength without anyone watching. Yet Killua had followed him undetected and settled on that rock as though all those precautions had been a brief performance staged for his amusement.

'Damn this brat. Are Zoldycks born with a mute button for their footsteps?'

Killua's eyes moved from Tonpa's trembling index finger to the hole through the rock, then to the shattered tree trunk behind it.

"That was interesting," he said lightly.

Tonpa did not answer.

Killua's smile widened a little.

"Did you need all that shaking just to fire one shot?"

Tonpa's expression stiffened.

'Of everything he saw, of course he decided to start with my ass.'

He lowered his hand to his side, as though that might help end the discussion about the rest of his body.

It did not.

"At first, I thought you were trying to shake a spider out of your pants."

Heat crept into Tonpa's ears.

'Damn whoever created this art. He should have included a chapter on killing witnesses.'

He opened his mouth to respond, but Killua's smile vanished before he found anything to say. The boy lowered his leg and dropped silently to the ground.

When he raised his head again, there was no trace of mockery left in his expression.

"What are you after?"

The words were quiet. That only made them more threatening.

Killua took one step forward.

"Have you had this strength all along?"

He kept his eyes fixed on Tonpa.

"I suspected you from the start. Then I started to think I might have been wrong."

He glanced at the hole in the rock again.

"Looks like you're still hiding plenty."

Killua's right hand hung at his side. His nails lengthened, and his fingers curled slightly, the sharp tips aimed toward Tonpa.

For a moment, Tonpa felt as though the blood in his veins had stopped.

He did not need his knowledge of the anime to understand what that meant. Killua's stance changed with the movement. His center of gravity lowered, his feet settled against the ground, and the distance between them became something he could cross before Tonpa finished inventing half a sentence.

'Wonderful. My index finger still hasn't stopped shaking, and he's about to show me what else fingers are good for.'

Tonpa tried to rise from the rock, but his legs protested immediately. He braced a palm against its edge and slowly pushed himself upright. He tensed his muscles to keep the trembling under control, but the nausea left by the Sutra rose in his throat.

Even at his best, he would not have been certain he could face Killua. His Strength and Speed had reached Rank B, but numbers had not given him the experience of an assassin trained since childhood. Now that he had compressed most of his body's energy into a single attack, Rank B Speed was little more than an impressive label attached to legs that refused to work.

And if Killua misjudged what his body could withstand and struck merely to incapacitate him, Tonpa might end up missing a body part before he had a chance to object.

He slowly raised both hands.

"Calm down. I'll explain."

Killua's shoulder moved.

That was all Tonpa saw.

The next instant, the boy was no longer in front of him.

'What—'

A light blow struck the back of his knee. His leg buckled before he could brace it, and the ground rushed toward his face.

Then his fall stopped with a violent jerk.

His shirt pulled taut at the collar, and his knee landed among the pebbles. The air left his lungs, but he had no time to draw another breath.

Something cold slid beneath his jaw.

He froze.

Killua's fingers were at his throat.

He had not seen the hand arrive. He had not heard a single footstep behind him. A moment ago, he had been raising his hands to calm the boy down. Now he did not even dare lower them.

The edge of a nail touched his skin.

A tiny sting.

Then a warm drop slid slowly down the side of his neck.

His eyes widened.

'Damn it… I'm done for.'

The hand gripping his collar tightened slightly, holding his head at an angle he could not change without brushing against those nails.

Killua's voice came close to his ear, terrifyingly calm.

"You can talk from there."

Tonpa kept staring at the place where the boy had been standing a moment earlier.

This time, he could not think of a joke.

The grip behind his neck did not loosen. The nails did not withdraw. He remained on one knee, his other foot planted in front of him, supporting as much of his weight as it could.

He lowered his hands very slowly until one rested on his raised knee.

Killua did not stop him.

But he did not let him go, either.

Tonpa considered calling for the others.

Then he felt the edge of the nail beneath his jaw again.

Gon would rush to him immediately, and Kurapika would not let the confrontation continue without hearing both sides. But getting here would take them far longer than that hand would need.

Even if he called them, they would find a rock with a hole through it, a shattered tree, and Tonpa pinned in Killua's grip, being made to explain himself. Instead of convincing one person, he would have to invent a story that convinced four at once.

'No. If I have to bury this disaster, I'd rather not invite an audience to the funeral.'

"Start talking," Killua said. "I want to hear which lie you choose."

"Why assume it'll be a lie?"

"Because you're Tonpa."

The answer hit its mark more precisely than the Sutra's blast.

Tonpa struggled to keep his voice steady as Killua continued.

"I wasn't asleep. But you put on a good show, so I didn't want to interrupt."

Tonpa frowned.

"What show?"

A hint of mockery returned to the boy's voice.

"You started by checking whether we were asleep. You looked at Gon, Leorio, and Kurapika. Then you kept staring at me as though you were waiting for me to open my eyes."

He paused.

"After that, you started moving your finger through the air, and your expression changed every few seconds. Sometimes you smiled. Sometimes you looked shocked. Sometimes you looked like you were arguing with someone we couldn't see."

A headache began behind Tonpa's eyes.

'Wonderful. The brat even watched my fights with the System.'

Killua continued.

"Then your whole body tensed, and the ground cracked under your hand. Your foot nearly hit a rock. After that, you started rotating your shoulder and bending over, like you were testing a body you'd just received."

The mockery faded from his voice.

"Then a capsule appeared in your hand out of nowhere. You drank it, and the smell coming off you nearly woke Gon. Then you wiped whatever had come out of your skin onto a piece of your shirt and made that disappear too."

Tonpa's eyes widened a little.

Killua had not merely been watching.

He had been memorizing every humiliating moment.

"After that, your presence became fainter, and you left. I followed you. I saw you smash that rock with your fist, run faster than you ever have in front of us, then blast a hole through another rock with one finger and destroy the tree behind it."

Tonpa kept looking at the hole ahead of him. From here, the evidence he had left behind seemed more troublesome than impressive.

"So what were you doing to yourself inside the cave? And what was in that capsule?"

Tonpa bit the inside of his cheek.

The questions were annoyingly reasonable, and the nails resting at his throat imposed strict limits on what he could say aloud.

"You acted as though you couldn't use that Nen you told us about in the tower," the boy continued. "So what did I just see? A few hours ago, we were carrying you around unconscious because of the poison."

The hand gripping his shirt tightened a little.

"How much of that weakness was real? Was everything you did with us an act too?"

Tonpa opened his mouth, then closed it.

He had plenty of lies.

The problem was that Killua had seen more than any convenient lie could accommodate.

If he said his strength had appeared that night, he would have to explain why it had appeared, the capsule he had drunk, and how he had produced it out of thin air. If he claimed he had known the Sutra for years but had been unable to use it, Killua would ask who had taught him and what had changed.

Claiming he had been hiding his strength all along would bring them straight back to the worst question: Why had he not used it when their lives were in danger?

He did not just need an excuse for the hole in the rock.

He needed a story that covered everything Killua had seen, from his first movement inside the cave to the shattered tree behind the rock.

And telling him about the System was the worst option of all. Tonpa did not understand the System well enough himself to explain how it had turned an overweight con artist into someone who could shatter rocks in a matter of days. Even if Killua believed him, revealing its existence would put Tonpa's greatest secret inside the head of a professional assassin he had known for only a few turbulent days.

'Think. You've sold things that didn't exist to people who didn't need them. Losing to the truth in your first direct confrontation is unacceptable.'

He tried to assemble a story that fit what Killua knew, but exhaustion weighed on his thoughts. Every time he found the beginning of a lie, its ending ran into some detail the brat had witnessed himself.

The pebbles began to hurt his knee. He wanted to shift it, but he was afraid his neck would move with it, so he merely tightened his fingers against his other leg.

Killua said nothing.

He did not need to.

The lingering sting in Tonpa's neck was enough to remind him that he did not have unlimited time to negotiate.

Ding!

A notification appeared at the worst possible moment.

[Killua Zoldyck's Trust: 27% → 22%]

Tonpa stared at the new number.

Five whole percentage points, gone in minutes.

'You deduct Trust too? To raise it, I have to save someone's life. To lower it, all I have to do is train without permission?'

The window shuddered, and a second line appeared beneath it.

[Killua Zoldyck's Current Status: Confused, Concerned.]

Tonpa blinked.

Concerned?

He could not see Killua's face, but nothing he could perceive suggested concern. A calm voice, a steady grip, and nails that had not moved from his throat since the boy had forced him down. Without the System's help, Tonpa would have chosen "ready to rip out my guts" long before that word occurred to him.

'Stupid System. You lower his Trust in me, then tell me he's concerned, as if that gives me the points back.'

But the insult lost its bite before he finished it.

He read the line again.

Confused.

Concerned.

The notification did not tell him what concerned Killua, nor did it guarantee that the boy would not hurt him. The drop of blood on his neck was proof enough that concern did not make those nails any less sharp.

But Killua could have done far more than he had.

He had reached Tonpa's back before Tonpa could follow him with his eyes, brought him down, and restrained him. Then he had stopped his nail at a small scratch. He still held him, but he kept asking questions instead of increasing the pressure.

He wanted an answer.

And his last question had not been about the capsule or the rock.

Had everything he had done with them been an act?

Tonpa replayed the words in his head, then remembered what the boy had said before moving.

I suspected you from the start. Then I started to think I might have been wrong.

It seemed to Tonpa that Killua was trying to work out whether the man who had taken that risk inside the cave, helped them during the exam, and shared a meal with them hours earlier actually existed… or whether he was a mask concealing someone else who was getting close to Gon.

For a moment, the headache stopped crushing Tonpa's thoughts.

Perhaps Killua had not made up his mind yet.

Perhaps, behind that cold expression Tonpa had seen before being forced to his knee, the boy was looking for a reason to set aside his suspicions without putting Gon in danger.

And that was a distinction a con artist could work with.

Tonpa relaxed his fingers against his knee and kept his breathing shallow and careful. He did not try to turn around or raise a hand toward the nails.

Inside, however, a devious smile slowly began to form.

'If he wants an excuse to believe me… it would be rude not to sell him one.'

_______________________________

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