By the time the Broken Causeway finally began to thin out, Yuzuki and Ponzu were filthy, wind-beaten, and more irritated than tired.
The second phase had been cruel in exactly the way Yuzuki expected.
Not a straight sprint. Not a simple endurance run. It had been the kind of exam that punished every lazy assumption. Stone sections had broken beneath people who moved too quickly. Signposts had lured examinees toward routes that looked easy and turned into death traps two minutes later. Fake bandits had tried to steal cargo from weaker candidates. Carrion beasts had leapt from the swamp below whenever someone lingered too long near the edge. And all throughout it, the containers had forced everyone into a rhythm they didn't like. Slow enough to be careful, fast enough not to fail.
Yuzuki had figured it out fully after Togari.
Not just that something inside the metal case was alive, but that it was delicate. The way it shifted when tilted too hard. The tiny pauses in movement when he kept it steady. The faint rhythm of breathing whenever he pressed it lightly against his chest and listened.
Ponzu had picked up on it too.
So they adapted.
They stopped carrying the containers like weight and started carrying them like responsibility.
Even then, the causeway didn't make things easy.
At one point, a slanted stone ramp had begun collapsing under Ponzu's feet, forcing Yuzuki to grab the back of her coat and yank her sideways before the section broke off entirely and plunged into the acid mud below. Another time, a carrion beast had surged from the swamp with its jaws wide enough to swallow a man's torso, only for Yuzuki to slam a chunk of broken pillar into its open mouth hard enough to send it crashing backward into the muck.
Ponzu, clutching her cargo tight, had stared wide-eyed.
Yuzuki had only said, "Keep moving."
And so they had.
Through broken bridges.
Through snapping winds.
Through shifting stone and bad intentions and every other nasty little obstacle the Hunter Association had decided counted as education.
By the time they reached the final rise overlooking the checkpoint island, Ponzu was breathing hard.
Yuzuki was breathing evenly.
Of course.
Ponzu narrowed her eyes at his back.
'Unfair. Completely unfair.'
The final section was a narrow stretch of cracked white stone, slick with spray from the swamp below. Beyond it was the island itself. Flat, black, and broad, with a raised platform near the center where Hunter Association personnel waited.
Yuzuki stepped onto it first.
Ponzu right behind him.
And standing there already, exactly where neither of them wanted him, was Hisoka.
He leaned casually against a stone post as though he had simply wandered in ahead of everyone else for fun. His cargo was already gone, which meant it had already been inspected.
His clothes were cleaner this time.
Hisoka's eyes slid toward them, and his lips curved upward the instant they landed on Yuzuki.
"Well, well. You made it. ♣"
Yuzuki shrugged. "Obviously."
Hisoka's smile widened.
Ponzu, still catching her breath, looked at the clown and thought, 'Creep.'
Hisoka, unfortunately, also noticed something had passed between them and tilted his head. "How cozy. ♠"
Yuzuki deadpanned. "Don't start."
Hisoka pushed off the stone post and took a few lazy steps closer. "I'm only saying I'm pleased. Matching destinations, matching progress..." He glanced at the checkpoint ahead, then back at Yuzuki. "Perhaps fate is trying to tell us something. ♥"
Yuzuki shoved both hands into his hoodie pocket. "Yeah. That you should mind your own business."
Hisoka chuckled under his breath.
Then another voice cut in from the side.
"Well, look at that."
Hanzo approached from the opposite path, carrying his own cargo with the ease of someone who had long since made peace with difficult nonsense. He looked tired, dusty, and mildly offended by the existence of phase two.
But alive.
When he saw Yuzuki, he grinned. "You survived this far."
Yuzuki looked at him blankly. "Of course."
Hanzo laughed. "Good answer."
Then his eyes flicked to Ponzu. "And who's this?"
Ponzu straightened slightly. "Ponzu."
Hanzo nodded once. "Hanzo."
Yuzuki gestured lazily between them. "Ponzu. Hanzo. Hanzo. Ponzu."
"That was very formal," Hanzo said.
"You're welcome," Yuzuki replied.
A Hunter Association staff member approached before anyone else could say more. He wore a standard dark uniform and white gloves, and his expression was the kind of calm professionalism that said he had seen too many examinees cry to be moved by anything anymore.
"Cargo inspection," he said.
Hisoka had already gone through it, judging by the absence of his container.
Hanzo stepped forward first and handed his over.
The staff member placed a hand lightly on the top of the sealed metal box and closed his eyes. A small pulse of Nen flowed from his palm. Thin, controlled, probing not the shell but what lay within.
Yuzuki noticed immediately.
'Smart. They don't even need to open it.'
A second later the staff member nodded, satisfied, and handed Hanzo a red tag.
Hanzo took it without comment and clipped it onto his sleeve.
Ponzu went next.
Same process.
Then the staff member handed her a red tag as well.
Then he turned to Yuzuki.
Yuzuki handed over his cargo.
The Nen inspection lasted just a fraction longer this time, probably because the staff member was being more careful, or perhaps because he'd heard Bisky's name attached to this one. Either way, he eventually gave a small nod and handed Yuzuki his own red tag.
Yuzuki clipped it on.
Hisoka, who had been watching all of this with far too much amusement, suddenly lifted his hand and showed them his own tag.
Red.
"Look," he said. "We match. ♦"
Yuzuki stared at him.
Hanzo looked away and muttered, "He really is a freak."
Ponzu thought, 'Creep. Absolute creep.'
More examinees began arriving after that.
Some stumbled in seconds before collapsing to their knees. Others came in pairs, arguing. A few arrived with damaged containers and hopeful expressions.
One by one, the staff checked each cargo using Nen and handed out tags.
Red.
Blue.
Red.
Blue.
The pattern slowly made one thing clear:
Not everyone who reached the checkpoint had actually passed.
By the time the twenty-four hours were finally up, the island had filled with a restless, exhausted crowd marked in red and blue.
Then Wing returned.
He stepped back onto the platform with the same calm posture as before, hands folded behind his back, eyes moving over the assembled examinees.
The wind had shifted cooler now. Evening had come properly. The swamp below looked darker and meaner.
Wing waited for the shouting to settle.
Then he spoke.
"Congratulations to those who reached the checkpoint."
Wing continued.
"The purpose of Phase Two was not merely to transport weight from one point to another."
He looked across the sea of metal containers now stacked off to the side.
"The cargo was never meant to be treated like dead weight."
A hush spread.
Yuzuki's attention sharpened.
He already knew where this was going. Still, he wanted to hear how Wing would phrase it.
"Inside each sealed container," Wing said, "was a living marsh hare. A delicate animal native to the swamps below."
That triggered immediate reactions.
Ponzu's eyes widened. "A hare?"
Hanzo's brows rose. "Seriously?"
Hisoka only smiled.
Wing went on. "The outer shell was durable. The contents were not. Any candidate who sprinted recklessly, dropped the cargo, threw it, used it as a weapon, or handled it carelessly failed, regardless of whether they reached the checkpoint."
Groans broke out among the examinees.
Wing did not care.
"The lesson was simple. A Hunter is often entrusted with something valuable they do not fully understand. Those who pause, observe, listen, and adapt are fit to continue. Those who treat everything like an obstacle to be bullied through are not."
He let that sit for a second before delivering the final number.
"Of the original one hundred and thirty-seven participants…"
He looked over the crowd.
"Sixty-two remain. Those wearing red tags."
That did it.
A mini-riot broke out almost instantly.
"This is bullshit!"
"You never told us there was something alive inside!"
"How is that fair!?"
"I crossed that death trap for nothing!"
Several blue-tagged examinees surged forward in anger, voices rising, some clearly on the verge of attacking the staff or Wing himself.
Then Hisoka laughed.
Softly at first.
Then enough that everyone nearby heard it.
He stepped forward, red tag visible, card already twirling between his fingers.
"All this whining over failing a simple little test? ♠"
The crowd stilled.
His smile sharpened.
"You broke what was entrusted to you. You lost. That's all. If you're too stupid to notice something breathing in your hands..." He looked over them with naked contempt. "Then perhaps you should be grateful the exam eliminated you before the world did. ♦"
One examinee shouted, "Shut up, clown!"
Hisoka's eyes narrowed.
The card stopped spinning.
"Careful," he said softly. "Keep barking, and I may decide to kill every one of you. ♥"
That shut them up fast.
The air turned ugly.
And then another voice entered the space. Firm, composed, and carrying the peculiar authority of a man who believed deeply in rules whether anyone else enjoyed them or not.
"Killing people is not a good thing."
Everyone turned.
Stepping forward from behind the line of staff, coat neat despite the wind, was Mizaistom Nana.
He adjusted his tie and looked directly at Hisoka.
"Justice," he said calmly, "works much better when people stay alive long enough to be judged."
---
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