"What's wrong, Young Master?"
The old butler had sharp eyes and instantly caught the change in Roy's expression.
Roy stared at the photo of the ant leg for a moment, then slowly came back to himself and said softly, "Nothing."
What was coming would come. Even if he wanted to avoid it, there was no escaping it.
Still... with Kite's current strength, if he ran into the ants, there was a good chance Neferpitou wouldn't even need to make a move. Any random elite squadron leader might already be more than he could handle. And on top of that, Chimera Ants could keep accumulating superior human or Nen-user genes through devouring others, so their growth speed was obviously far beyond that of humans...
Thoughts drifting, Roy scooped up a spoonful of steamed egg and put it in his mouth, then asked calmly, "Time and place."
"They didn't give a specific date," Tsubone replied, "but the location is confirmed... the NGL Autonomous Republic."
A flicker passed through Roy's eyes.
Of course. There was probably no better place for ants to breed than NGL.
Leaving aside the fact that the country was known as the hardest nature preserve in the world to enter, sitting at the western edge of the Mitene Union in the Balsa Islands and surrounded by ocean on all sides, making it relatively isolated—
its whole national philosophy of preserving nature, rejecting machinery, and returning to an agricultural civilization had also, without anyone meaning to, handed the ants a rich pasture to cultivate.
And what, exactly, they were "raising," went without saying.
Unbidden, the faces of Beyond and Pariston surfaced in Roy's mind. He had heard that the latter had retaken the Hunter Exam, passed it with ease, and officially become a Hunter Association member. More than that, because his performance had been so outstanding, the Association's upper ranks had already listed him as a priority candidate for the Twelve Zodiacal Signs.
Roy glanced out the window again, wondering whether the old man leisurely enjoying breakfast out there knew about any of this.
"I understand. Once they set the date, we'll talk again."
"Because next... I won't have time to play around with any of them."
Dong—
At six in the morning, the red sun rose over the horizon, sending out countless rays of dawn light.
As the standing clock in the corner struck the hour, Roy finished breakfast and rose to his full height. With a casual spread of his hand, points of light gathered—one white, one red—and two long blades slowly appeared, one on each side, before he grabbed them both firmly.
At a glance, they were none other than the long-silent Snow Walker and the blazing Eclipse.
A sharp pair of sword cries pierced the sky.
Roy reversed his grip and slid both blades to his waist as he started toward the door. At the same time—
Roar—
A fist wind howled like a dragon.
The huge floor-to-ceiling window beside the second-floor bedroom corridor was suddenly thrown open, and a broad, powerfully built man leaped straight down from it.
With just one glance at Roy, he said, "Deep in Kukuroo Mountain, by that spring—I'll be waiting."
A hum rang out.
Fist intent and sword intent collided.
Just like the first time Roy had met Netero, the two men exchanged a silent look, and their auras clashed before either of them had even released Ren, unfolding at once into—
[Heart's Ear of the Fist] and [Heart's Ear of the Sword].
"Ho ho ho..."
Netero planted his hands on his hips and laughed.
Clink, clank...
Zeno was cutting into his steak, but in his hurry the knife slipped and left a pale scratch across the plate.
Creak—
In that dim little room on the first floor, it seemed an old man had been napping. On the television beside him, a show called My Stubborn Son and My Unlucky Father was playing, with the father and son on screen strangling each other and rolling around the living room floor. Maha tilted his head as if the noise had woken him and muttered, "At least they had the sense to fight in the mountains instead of wrecking the house..."
His ears suddenly grew longer and larger, purple-black aura flowing faintly across them...
As [Heart's Ear of the Fist] and [Heart's Ear of the Sword] rippled against each other, their waves spread outward...
After Silva gave Roy one deep look, he turned and shot off toward the heart of Kukuroo Mountain.
At that moment, on the second floor, Kikyo stepped out of the bedroom with Killua in her arms. She happened to see Illumi racing after Silva, and behind him, Netero and Zeno, who had only just finished breakfast. Static flickered across her electronic eyes as she cast another complicated look toward Roy's room...
Roy's striking silver hair, tipped in glass-gold, stirred lightly as he looked in the direction Silva had vanished.
Then he walked out at an unhurried pace.
Creak.
The bedroom door opened.
Tsubone adjusted her glasses and suddenly called out, "Young Master."
Roy stopped and turned.
The old butler smiled warmly, placed a hand over her chest, and bowed to him.
"Please give it your all."
Roy froze for a brief instant.
Then he heard the panel prompt—
[Detected: one "pending follower"]
[Note: Tsubone]
With a wave of wind, Roy gently raised the old butler back up.
He said nothing. He only smiled at her.
Then, in the next instant, he leaped up, merged into the morning glow, and sped toward the depths of Kukuroo Mountain.
Tsubone listened to the wind howl, leaning at the window as she watched the dawn light spread across the land and the red sun rise into the sky.
Her pink twin-tails swayed as she clung to the window and murmured, "Beautiful."
Just as beautiful as the day the master defeated Lord Zeno...
Then she cleaned up the messy breakfast cart and pushed it away with a rumbling roll of wheels, hurrying after Roy.
After all, she had promised Kuraging last night that she would let the siblings watch the match.
Tsubone quickened her pace and glanced up at the sky. Roy darted through the dawn light, sometimes stepping off little phantom swords for support as he floated along. Then, in a blink, he vanished from sight.
Tsubone returned to the butler villa, shoved a telescope into Kuraging's hands and another into Kurapika's, then led them both toward the depths of Kukuroo Mountain...
Kuraging in front, Kurapika behind.
The boy's smooth blond hair hung down his back as he held the telescope, puzzled.
Just to watch a fight, do we really need telescopes?
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he suddenly felt himself lifted by the back of the collar. The next thing he knew, his whole body was airborne, and he landed atop a large tree, nearly scaring him out of his skin.
"We'll watch from here."
"Too close isn't safe."
Tsubone held Kuraging in one hand and Kurapika in the other, looking down from above...
Deep in Kukuroo Mountain, amid dense forest, there was a rare open clearing.
A spring in the ground burbled, sending up columns of water and feeding a small, still pool in the middle of the clearing...
Kurapika narrowed his eyes. With the naked eye, all he could make out was a hazy patch of rippling shadows. So he obediently raised the telescope and adjusted the focus.
By the pool, besides himself, his sister, and Tsubone, there were two other groups, each standing in separate trees.
Kurapika turned the telescope again—
and suddenly, two old eyes filled his view, staring straight through the lens as if they could see him through it.
They noticed him instantly.
Kurapika's heart jumped.
It was that old man!
He quickly swept the telescope past Netero and Zeno.
"Ho ho ho... that child is quick-witted," Netero said as he landed on a tree with Beans. He casually glanced at Zeno beside him. "Since when did your family start taking an interest in Scarlet Eyes?"
Zeno's white hair swayed as he withdrew his gaze from Kurapika and said calmly, "That's a question you should ask Roy."
"He's here."
Boom—
[Heart's Ear of the Fist] and [Heart's Ear of the Sword] broke apart.
Two figures emerged like ghosts from the forest.
One walked straight out of the dawn light with the rising sun at his back.
At the same time,
they descended onto the pool,
their feet settling on the water's surface as lightly and steadily as floating leaves.
A mountain wind rose, stirring both of their silver heads of hair.
Silva and Roy faced each other in silence, a hundred meters apart, each staring the other down.
Boom!
Two vast, overwhelming bursts of Ren erupted from their bodies at the exact same instant.
In a single moment, the calm pool beneath them began to surge and shudder violently.
Before fist or blade had even been thrown, Ren had already gone ahead.
Kurapika held the telescope and adjusted the angle, finally avoiding Netero's stare. Then he looked back to the pool and watched the scene in shock.
Two questions immediately surfaced in his mind.
First—why were they able to stand on water without sinking?
Second—why did that pool suddenly seem to be wailing?
Yes. Wailing.
Kurapika's instincts told him the pool could no longer bear the weight of what was pressing down on it. It was crying out. It was begging for mercy.
No one understood Kurapika better than his sister.
Kuraging had known since childhood that her brother always buried things inside and wore that heavy-hearted look all the time. What he didn't realize was that anyone who truly knew him could tell at a glance how disturbed he was right now.
Standing beside Tsubone, Kuraging took a deep breath and said, "That's the Nen I told you about yesterday."
"You can only stand on water like that by using it. And only with it can you make the surface itself surge and tremble."
Nen.
A superpower.
Kurapika lowered his eyes slightly, silently turning the words over in his head, when Tsubone—standing tall as a gorilla with her arms folded—added, "Not every Nen user can stand that steadily on water the way the master and young master can."
"That takes an extremely deep understanding of Nen."
Kuraging couldn't help nodding. Tsubone was right. She herself still couldn't do it.
Her long golden hair was tied high behind her back. She lifted the telescope again and looked out...
Across the violently churning pool, she could now faintly see two waves of aura colliding—one silver, one red.
A sharp pain suddenly stabbed into her eyes. It felt like someone had smashed them with a hammer. She staggered and nearly fell from the tree, but Tsubone caught her in time and hauled her upright.
"Remember to use Gyo when you look," the old butler instructed patiently by her ear. "Your brother's aura nodes aren't open, so he can't see clearly anyway. He'll be fine. But you... you're different."
Kuraging steadied her breathing and replied gratefully, "Yes."
With a thought, she opened her aura nodes and directed a thread of aura into her eyes. Then she raised the telescope again...
And this time, in shock, she saw that within the Ren surrounding Silva and Roy, there were cannon shells and flaming swords circling endlessly.
Even from a thousand meters away,
Kuraging could feel it clearly—
the crushing weight of those shells,
the searing heat and razor edge of those swords...
It was almost enough to make her unable to keep her eyes open.
"Hm... in the end, Silva really has improved over the years."
By the pool, Netero flicked his sleeve and slapped aside a cannon shell and a sword wave that had spread too close.
Boom—
Shing—
The shell exploded, and the sword slashed out, leaving a crater in one tree and a clean cut through another.
Beside him, Beans' eyelid twitched, and he quietly edged a little closer to Netero.
Zeno's white hair swayed as he watched silently with his hands behind his back.
"You think that's surprising?" he said with a faint laugh.
"He's my son."
In the world of Nen abilities, once you ignored the gimmicks, all that remained was raw numbers.
And Silva—
was exactly the kind of man who believed in raw numbers above all else.
Zeno proudly watched Silva's aura carrying shell after shell up into the air and said quietly, "There's anger in his heart. He doesn't trust other people. He only trusts himself... and his fists."
"So, as you've seen, the stubbornness and defiance inside his Ren aren't one bit less than Roy's."
Netero laughed.
"That's why I say your whole Zoldyck family is full of hard-headed maniacs."
Assassins took money and got the job done. Either the target died—or they turned around and killed the client instead. One way or another, a mission was not allowed to fail.
That alone said enough.
Zeno gave a low laugh but neither confirmed nor denied it. He simply narrowed his eyes and looked back toward the lake.
Amid the collisions of shells and sword strikes...
Silva moved first.
He stepped forward with his right foot.
His beautiful silver hair hung down to his waist. With the fierce majesty of a hawk and wolf in his eyes, he locked onto Roy and said in a low voice, "Three years ago, I never would have imagined that the one standing in front of me now would be you."
"So?" Roy stepped forward with his right foot as well, blade horizontal in hand. Its tip spat a cold gleam no one wanted to meet head-on.
Silva drew both hands from his pockets.
"So don't expect me to hold back this time the way I did before."
His silver hair flew backward as he suddenly pushed more aura into his body. In each hand, he formed a glowing Nen shell, then launched himself upward and hurled them both at Roy.
His voice turned cold and murderous.
"Prepare to be killed by me, Roy."
"Even if you are my son!"
Whoosh—
The Nen shells crossed the distance in an instant, just like the time in canon when Silva and Zeno had joined forces against Chrollo and Silva had tried to blow him apart with two aura bombs.
Facing those two terrifying Nen cannonballs head-on—
two suns flared to life in Roy's eyes.
With one swift motion, he slashed twice in a crossing arc, sending out two flying cuts.
They struck the exact center of the Nen shells head-on.
And then—
shhk—
The Nen bombs were split cleanly in half, their cut surfaces flashing with light before both halves exploded at once.
Boom!
Amid the violent shockwave of aura,
Roy lowered both swords diagonally and licked his lips.
"As you wish, Father."
Then—
his figure blurred.
~~~
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