[Hunter x Hunter] Scamming My Way to the Top

[Boumargood]

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Chapter 90: The Other Version of the Story

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Tonpa swallowed the last wild berry and wiped his fingers on the hem of his clothes. He planted his palm against the wall, then slowly pushed himself to his feet.

His thighs felt heavy. He waited a moment before taking his hand off the rock.

His legs held.

They were far from light, but the darkness that had crept into the edges of his vision during the night did not return. He drew a deeper breath. A familiar twinge beneath his ribs checked the movement of his chest, rather than the frightening emptiness that had almost choked him.

He shifted his weight onto his right leg, then bent his left slightly and straightened it.

It responded.

'All right. You both still work.'

Perhaps his Endurance had helped. Perhaps rest was finally taking effect now that the System had stopped the leakage. He did not know how much strength he had recovered, and standing was hardly proof that his body was ready for another bad idea.

He stepped toward the entrance.

"Where are you going?"

He turned to Gon.

"Not far. I need to move around a little."

The boy stood and brushed the dirt from his trousers.

"I'll come with you."

Tonpa's foot stopped at the threshold, his heel scraping the dirt.

He remained facing outside for a moment, giving his expression time to shed its irritation. He had spent the night under Killua's surveillance. Now Gon was offering to take the morning shift.

'Is there a duty roster hanging somewhere in this cave that nobody told me about?'

He relaxed his jaw, then turned with a warm smile.

"I was going to ask. After what happened last night, I'd be glad to have you with me."

Gon smiled and approached. He seemed to take the words as a desire for company, an interpretation Tonpa saw no reason to correct.

Ding!

[Deception Registered.]

[Nen Points +5]

[Experience Points +5]

[Gon Freecss's Trust: 38% → 40%]

'Forty percent. If I'd asked him to leave me alone, would the System have deducted it immediately?'

They emerged into the morning light. Tonpa descended the slope in short steps, enjoying air free of any lingering evidence of Leorio's nighttime crime.

He let Gon move a little ahead on the steepest stretch, then followed. His legs were still tired, and his right index finger protested when he tried to bend it fully, but he did not need to lean on the boy's shoulder.

Gon watched him as they walked side by side.

"You look better than last night."

"Sleep helps when people let you have some."

A shoe print near a leaning trunk caught his attention. His gaze followed it until it disappeared into the grass.

He remembered Barco's ally, the man who had caught him from behind. He knew neither his name nor his Badge number, but he knew what mattered: that man had drawn number sixteen.

Where had he gone after the three of them fled?

He had seen a tree take on Hisoka's appearance after Tonpa claimed to be friends with the magician. Perhaps three points were no longer worth the risk. Or perhaps he was waiting for Tonpa to leave the group.

'Is he still looking for me, or is he looking for an island where Hisoka doesn't grow on trees?'

He moved closer to Gon. Let the man search until either his feet or his courage gave out. Tonpa would not volunteer to make the task easier.

'This isn't hiding behind a child. It's choosing a free defensive position.'

He chose a level patch among the trees, close enough that the path back to the cave remained visible. Gon sat on an exposed root while Tonpa rested his palm against a trunk and waited until he had recovered a little from the walk.

Then he closed his eyes.

He knew the definition of Ten: keeping aura around the body. As for the execution, his memory offered little beyond scenes of Wing, followed by Gon and Killua learning with deceptive speed.

He slowed his breathing and searched for the warmth he had felt during the night.

He found the cold pressure first.

It stayed against his skin, unchanged no matter how he adjusted his breathing. He focused on his shoulders, then his arms. A brief prickling sensation passed through his palm, but he could not tell whether it was aura or simply a hand tired of supporting his weight.

He opened his eyes in irritation.

How was he supposed to learn to contain something he could not even release?

He summoned the quest window and focused on the line describing the protective measure.

A small option appeared beneath it.

[Aura Suppression Controls.]

He frowned, then selected it.

[The Host may temporarily suspend suppression for training and resume it when needed.]

[Warning: While suppression is suspended, the Host is responsible for containing their aura.]

[Suspending suppression does not pause the quest timer.]

Tonpa stared at the lines.

'I can turn it off?'

He looked back at the option, then considered the pressure he had just been trying to work around.

'And you had to wait for me to find it myself. Of course.'

Two buttons appeared beneath the window.

[Suspend Suppression.]

[Maintain Suppression.]

He did not choose immediately.

He remembered the ground approaching his face and the air he had been unable to draw into his chest. He had no intention of repeating the experience just to earn a more detailed notification this time.

He looked at Gon.

"I'm going to try a short exercise. If you see me losing my balance, call out to me."

The boy straightened on the root.

"Will it hurt?"

"I'll stop before that."

Tonpa sat beside the trunk, kept the control window in view, and selected Suspend Suppression.

The pressure loosened around his skin.

He saw nothing, but felt warmth flowing through his arms and neck. His stomach tightened instinctively.

'Easy.'

He tried to imagine the aura staying around him instead of drifting away. He gathered his attention at his skin, then spread it across his shoulders and chest.

The flow continued.

His muscles stiffened whenever he tried to hold on to the sensation, as though his body had mistaken the instruction for an exercise in tensing his back.

After a few breaths, he resumed suppression.

The cold pressure returned, and the flow he had managed to distinguish stopped.

Tonpa slowly exhaled.

He had not learned Ten. At least, though, he now knew the difference between his own attempt and what the System was doing for him.

"Did it work?" Gon asked.

"I found where the problem starts."

The answer was truthful enough, and vague enough too.

He waited until his breathing settled, then tried again.

This time, he relaxed his shoulders. On the third attempt, he tried concentrating without changing his breathing. On the fourth, he discovered he had been holding his breath despite himself. He restored suppression and opened his eyes in frustration.

'Gon and Killua will learn Ten quickly. Comparing my Talent to theirs isn't training. It's organized humiliation.'

The elixir had raised his Talent to D, but it had not placed a teacher inside his head. Every attempt gave him a new sensation he did not know what to do with, then sent him back to the same button.

[Resume Suppression.]

He left it active this time and rested his head against the trunk.

The Ten entry had not changed.

Zero percent.

Gon looked at his face.

"We can go back if you're tired."

"I'll rest for a bit."

Some time passed before he stood again. He did not try to release any aura; suppression remained active. He raised his right hand, studied his index finger, then carefully extended it.

As far as he remembered, the next phase involved a series of direct confrontations. The matchups might change, but someone would probably try to hit him in front of an entire panel of examiners.

And he had a technique that required ten shakes before it did anything.

'Enough time for my opponent to kill me, then ask what the movement was for.'

He reviewed the knowledge the book had transferred.

Ten properly executed shakes. Fewer as his mastery improved, until one would suffice. The way to shorten the process was not to leave out nine and hope his confidence made up the difference.

For now, he would neither gather a charge nor release an attack.

He placed his feet as the stance required and bent his knees slightly.

Before he began, he glanced at Gon.

The boy sat on the root, watching with interest.

Tonpa's hips locked.

'Damn it. He came along just to sit there and watch my ass.'

He turned back toward the trees, then shifted to an angle that let his torso conceal part of the movement. He began a small shake, closer to transferring his weight between his feet, and cut it short before its full range became obvious.

The form was wrong.

He knew the mistake immediately. His knees had not bent far enough, and his hips had stopped before completing the motion.

He pressed his lips together.

He tried again, adding a short step to the side as though testing his balance. His feet moved, but the shake was lost somewhere between the step and the turn of his shoulder.

"Is that the movement Killua talked about?"

Tonpa's foot stopped halfway through the step.

He slowly turned. There was no smile on Gon's face. That did nothing to stop the heat rising into his ears.

'Damn you, Killua.'

"I'm practicing getting it right."

Gon nodded, then leaned forward a little.

He was watching even more closely now.

'Wonderful. Apparently, he needed encouragement.'

Tonpa returned to his stance and raised his hand as though it were the focus of the exercise. He made an obvious movement with his shoulder, then tried to slip the shake beneath it with as little motion as possible.

The sequence fell apart again.

He was not gathering energy, yet he could not execute movements he knew in theory. Whenever his hips approached the proper motion, he remembered the eyes behind him and shortened it or rushed the end.

"You stop halfway every time," Gon said.

Tonpa's fingers tightened.

'I know. You're the reason.'

"I'm trying to correct part of it."

"Should I come closer so I can see?"

"No."

The answer came faster than he intended.

Tonpa relaxed his jaw and added:

"Stay there. I need room."

Gon leaned back against the root while Tonpa turned farther toward the trees.

Ten correct shakes had sounded simple when he read the instructions in his head. Performing even one in front of this boy required an effort he had not counted among the Sutra's conditions.

He took a breath and started again.

A small step. Bent knees. A movement of his hips that he tried to conceal by turning his torso.

His heel nearly caught behind his other foot.

He steadied himself before he stumbled, then closed his eyes for a moment.

'Damn the creator of this art. Couldn't he have found another way?'

He did not stop. He reset his feet and tried again, more slowly this time. He knew the movements he added to hide the shaking made the exercise harder. Yet whenever he tried to leave them out, he caught sight of Gon from the corner of his eye, and his feet started moving before his hips again.

He could not keep going for long at a time. He would sit until the fatigue eased, then return to a few slow movements. Gon stayed nearby, sometimes watching, sometimes disappearing among the nearby trees before returning with a footstep or a rustle of leaves.

The shade moved away from the root where the boy had first sat.

When Tonpa's arm began to tremble, he lowered it and did not raise it again.

He had fired nothing.

His arm had not exploded.

He decided to count that as progress the System refused to acknowledge.

By the time they returned, the sun had passed its zenith, and Gon's stomach was audibly protesting their small breakfast.

Kurapika stood at the cave entrance, winding a short rope around his palm. Leorio was gathering dry branches to the right, while Killua jumped onto a nearby rock and pulled free a branch caught between two trees.

"You're back at the right time," Kurapika said. "We'll need food before evening. Killua and Leorio are staying here. I'm going hunting."

Gon immediately raised his hand.

"I'll come."

"You too, Tonpa."

Tonpa looked at the rope, then at his arm.

"Gon's enough to chase down whatever we're eating. I can stay with these two."

Kurapika's eyes moved to his trembling hand.

"Did you overdo it again?"

"Just slow movements."

He watched Tonpa for a moment, then said:

"Then come with me, and don't try anything else on the way. We'll look near the stream. You won't need to chase anything."

'He wanted to keep an eye on me, so he found a way to make me walk to the surveillance site myself.'

Leorio held out an empty sack.

"This doesn't require training."

Tonpa took it, then produced the smile of a man receiving an invitation he had been waiting for all day.

"Excellent idea. Nothing better than getting dinner ready together."

Gon smiled, Kurapika nodded, and Leorio seemed pleased to have handed off the sack. Only Killua looked down from the rock at Tonpa's arm and lifted the corner of his mouth.

Ding!

[Group Deception Registered.]

[Number of Targets: 3.]

[Nen Points +15]

[Experience Points +15]

'Three of them bought the enthusiasm. Killua bought a seat to watch the performance.'

They left the other two near the cave and followed Kurapika until they reached a shallow stream. Gon needed little time to find rabbit tracks pressed into the mud. He crouched, touched one, then pointed toward a thick cluster of bushes on the opposite bank.

"At least two. They passed through here not long ago."

Kurapika chose a narrow passage between two roots and placed Tonpa at its end with the sack, then circled around to the left. Gon disappeared among the trees on the opposite side.

Tonpa waited. A nearby branch shifted. He pulled the sack taut in front of him and prepared for something that might have a knife instead of ears.

A brown rabbit burst from the grass straight toward his legs.

Tonpa stepped back half a pace and instinctively waved the sack. The animal changed direction. Gon sprang from behind the root and caught it before it reached the stream.

"Nice work!" Gon said.

Tonpa kept his expression steady.

"That was intentional."

Kurapika emerged from the bushes holding the rope, its end looped around the leg of a second rabbit kicking at the air. He looked at Tonpa's feet.

"Of course. That's why you nearly fell backward."

"Balance is part of the trick."

Kurapika did not argue. He helped Gon put the rabbits into the sack, then reached out to carry it.

Tonpa pulled it toward himself.

"I can carry two rabbits."

Kurapika watched him lift the sack with his left hand and settle it against his shoulder, then nodded and led them back.

The path was not long, but Tonpa soon wished he had handed over the sack before saying something difficult to take back.

They had covered half the distance when a bush suddenly shook in front of him.

He stopped, his fingers tightening around the sack's cord. The leaves kept moving despite the still air. A heavy scraping came from within, nothing like the movements of the rabbits behind his shoulder.

'What's that?'

A dirty shoe emerged between the branches. A left leg followed, touching the ground cautiously without taking its owner's full weight.

Tonpa narrowed his eyes.

The limp looked familiar in a way he did not like.

A broad-chested man stepped out of the bush, his clothes stained with dirt and one hand near the knife at his waist.

Karto.

Tonpa's extremities went cold. The sack grew heavier on his shoulder, as though the rabbits had doubled in size at that very moment.

Karto looked at Gon first, then settled his eyes on Tonpa. A brief flicker of recognition crossed his face before his gaze shifted to Kurapika standing beside him.

His jaw froze.

Tonpa did not dare swallow.

This man knew another version of the story. He had heard Tonpa claim that Kurapika had allied with him, then betrayed him. He had heard him swear he would never betray an ally—before losing Badge 277, which had later ended up in the hands of Kurapika himself, the very man Tonpa had painted as a traitor.

'It took me an entire night to build that lie. This idiot could demolish it with a greeting.'

Kurapika did not need the whole story. Half a sentence, perhaps a question about why he was standing beside Tonpa, would be enough for him to begin piecing things together.

Karto's eyes widened slightly, and his mouth opened.

Tonpa watched his lips begin to move.

'Just don't say anything.'

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