Heavy rain struck the tinted windows of the 250th-floor residential suites, turning the city beyond Heaven's Arena into a blur of grey lights.
Inside Yuzuki's suite, the only sounds were the quiet hum of the medical equipment and the repeated whistle of Kastro's wooden practice sword cutting through the air.
Yuzuki stood in the centre of the training room wearing loose trousers and nothing over his heavily taped torso. Dark medical bindings supported his cracked ribs, while two strips ran along his lower back to protect the muscles damaged during his desperate Blue-assisted skip against Viktor.
His skin was pale, and sweat had already gathered around his neck despite the light nature of the exercise.
Kastro stood several steps away in a relaxed two-handed stance. He was not using Nen, and every strike remained controlled enough to stop before causing real harm.
"Again," Yuzuki said.
Kastro lowered the wooden sword slightly. "Your hips are barely turning. If your back locks during the movement, you will not be able to recover your stance."
"Chrollo won't wait for me to recover."
"That does not mean we should worsen the injury before the match begins."
Yuzuki adjusted his footing and raised one hand. "Change the attack after I react. Don't let the first movement reveal where the strike will finish."
Kastro studied him for a moment before stepping forward.
The wooden blade thrust directly toward Yuzuki's left shoulder. His Six Eyes caught the line immediately, and his body began slipping to the right.
Halfway through the attack, Kastro relaxed his wrist and changed direction. The thrust dropped into a low sweep aimed toward Yuzuki's taped ribs.
Yuzuki tried to correct, but his mind had already prepared an answer to the first attack. His injured torso could not adjust quickly enough to the second.
Kastro stopped the sword a few centimetres from his side.
"That is the danger," he said. "You understand movements so quickly that you sometimes commit to the answer before the question is finished."
Yuzuki slowly straightened. "Against most fighters, the opening movement tells me what follows."
"Chrollo knows that. He can establish a pattern, wait for you to trust it and then replace the ability controlling the exchange."
Kastro repeated the exercise several times. One thrust became a sweep. A strike toward the head turned into a step that attacked Yuzuki's balance instead. Another apparent feint became the real attack only after Yuzuki dismissed it.
Yuzuki avoided some, but not all.
His eyes continued finding the correct answer. His injured body simply could not change direction as quickly as his thoughts.
After the final exchange, he lowered himself carefully onto the mat and rested one hand against his ribs.
"He'll show me a pattern because he wants me to solve it," Yuzuki said. "Then he'll punish me for believing the solution."
Kastro placed the practice sword aside. "Which means seeing more will not always make you safer."
Wing had covered the broad desk inside the suite's study with reports, tournament recordings and photographs from Chrollo's known appearances.
Most of the information was incomplete.
Some documents contradicted others, while several witnesses had described entirely different abilities. The only consistent feature was the leather-bound book Chrollo carried into serious fights.
Wing tapped a photograph of Skill Hunter with the end of his pen.
"The theft conditions publicly associated with Chrollo's ability are not the same as the conditions he must follow when using what he has stolen," Wing said. "We know he must fulfil several requirements before taking an ability. We do not know the complete rules governing every page afterward."
Yuzuki leaned against the edge of the desk to relieve the pressure on his back. "The bookmark allows him to keep one page active while using another."
"That is what he demonstrated against Orion," Wing replied. "It may also allow him to maintain an ability after closing the book, but we cannot assume we have seen every restriction."
He moved several photographs into a row. One showed the spatial marker used against Orion. Another captured the marks from Sun and Moon. The rest displayed decoys, mist and simpler utility abilities used during the quarterfinal.
"Chrollo may possess abilities requiring preparation before the match," Wing continued. "Marks placed on the arena, objects hidden among debris, puppets, delayed triggers or conditions that activate only after you take a particular action. You cannot treat every technique as an isolated problem."
Yuzuki looked over the images. "If I spend the fight solving every page, he'll keep turning pages until my brain gives out."
"Exactly. Orion lost because Chrollo controlled which abilities appeared valuable. Your Six Eyes make you even more vulnerable to that kind of manipulation if you believe everything you observe deserves equal attention."
Wing placed the pen down.
"Do not fight the entire book. Watch Chrollo. His hands, his stance, what he protects and when he chooses to turn a page."
Yuzuki's gaze remained on the photograph of Chrollo.
"The man is the only part of the ability that stays the same."
Bisky ended the training before sunset.
She entered the study carrying a tray of bitter herbal tea, took one look at the reports covering the desk and ordered Wing and Kastro out of the room. Neither argued.
Once the door closed, she placed the tea in front of Yuzuki and sat across from him.
"No more training today."
"I wasn't using Nen."
"You were exhausting your eyes and forcing an injured body to react to attacks."
"I need to prepare."
"You need to be capable of walking into the arena tomorrow."
Bisky's voice remained firm, but the anger behind it was quieter than usual. She reached across the table and placed one hand over the tape supporting his shoulder.
"Pain changes the way people make decisions," she said. "It makes you impatient. It convinces you that ending the fight quickly is safer than continuing carefully. That is how injured fighters reach for techniques their bodies cannot survive."
Yuzuki looked down at the tea.
The Blue-assisted skip against Viktor had worked. It had also left him with torn stabilising muscles and pain that travelled into his hips whenever he moved incorrectly.
"Chrollo knows you are hurt," Bisky continued. "He knows how long Infinity lasts, and he has probably estimated the cooldown. He will create situations where those fifteen seconds feel unbearable. He wants you frightened enough to choose the largest answer available."
"Red or Purple."
"Or another movement you invent without knowing whether your spine will remain attached afterward."
Yuzuki gave her a tired look. "That happened once."
Bisky tightened her grip on his shoulder before releasing him.
"Your task is not to understand every ability he owns. Breathe, protect your ribs and reduce the number of things you are trying to solve. Most importantly, never assume that understanding one condition means you understand the whole trap."
Yuzuki lifted the cup and drank.
The tea remained awful.
"I understand."
Bisky watched him closely. "You say that too easily."
"I'll try to understand."
---
The suite had become quiet by the time Shizuku arrived.
Yuzuki sat on the floor near the window with his back supported against the couch. The rain had weakened to a steady tapping against the glass, and most of the room's lights had been turned off.
He recognised Shizuku's footsteps before the door opened.
She entered carrying a small leather case and crossed the room without speaking. Her oversized black sweater hung loosely over her jeans, and the city lights reflected in her round glasses.
Shizuku knelt behind him and untied the worn blindfold covering his eyes. The fabric was frayed near one edge and stained with sweat and dried blood.
"You ruined another one," she said.
"Viktor exploded half the arena."
"That sounds like an excuse."
"It is an extremely good excuse."
Shizuku removed a fresh strip of dense black silk from the case. She wrapped it carefully over his eyes and tied it at the back of his head, adjusting the tension until it blocked enough information without pressing against his temples.
"Chrollo will be thorough tomorrow," she said. "He won't underestimate you because you're injured."
"I'd be offended if he did."
"He may do things that feel cruel even if he doesn't hate you."
Yuzuki remained silent.
Shizuku's hands rested briefly on his shoulders. Her touch was light enough not to disturb the injuries beneath the tape.
"If that happens, don't hate him."
The request was delivered in the same flat tone she used for most things, but Yuzuki understood the fear behind it. Shizuku cared for both of them, even though she would never explain that care through a long emotional speech.
"I won't hate him," Yuzuki said. "But I won't let him kill me either."
Shizuku considered the answer before nodding.
"I won't use Purple unless he leaves me no other way to survive," Yuzuki added. "That is the only promise I can make."
"That's enough."
She closed the leather case and stood.
"Sleep. You look smaller when you're injured."
"I'm thirteen. I'm supposed to look small."
"You usually try very hard not to."
Shizuku left before he could answer.
Four floors above, Chrollo sat at a low table beneath a single lamp.
Skill Hunter was nowhere in sight. A stack of old handwritten pages rested before him instead, their edges worn soft by time. The faded cover belonged to a children's dubbing script once used in Meteor City.
Sarasa's name remained written across the front.
Pakunoda stood near the wall with her coat hanging loosely around her shoulders. She watched Chrollo turn one of the fragile pages.
"You're reading it again," she said.
"It helps me think."
"You have already prepared for tomorrow."
"Yes."
Pakunoda moved closer to the table. "Your plan is designed to pressure his injuries and force him to rely on Infinity."
Chrollo did not deny it.
"You sat with him after his last match," she continued. "You brought him tea."
"That does not change what tomorrow requires."
Chrollo's fingers stopped against the page.
For several moments, the rain filled the room.
"Yuzuki's kindness is unusual," he said at last. "Not because kind people do not exist, but because his has survived things that should have taught him to abandon it."
Pakunoda watched him quietly.
"You wanted him to join us before."
"I believed possessing what made him valuable would protect it."
"And now?"
Chrollo looked down at the faded words written for a girl whose voice he could no longer remember clearly enough.
"Now I am not certain possession would leave it unchanged."
It was not an admission that he had become harmless. Pakunoda knew him too well for that. Chrollo could care about Yuzuki and still construct a plan capable of killing him.
"You may understand him better tomorrow," she said.
"Yes."
Chrollo turned another page.
The quiet certainty in his answer troubled her more than denial would have.
Hisoka wandered through the upper levels of Heaven's Arena long after most fighters had returned to their rooms.
He watched staff prepare the arena, studied the corridors connecting the private suites and passed beneath the windows where Yuzuki and Chrollo were spending the night.
He knew Shizuku had visited Yuzuki. He had also seen Pakunoda enter Chrollo's room carrying the old wooden box that held Meteor City keepsakes.
Their history irritated him.
Hisoka understood desire through combat. He wanted to strip away every defence, force an opponent to reveal everything and discover what remained when fear and pain removed the masks.
Chrollo and Yuzuki shared something he could not create merely by hurting either of them.
The realisation sharpened his aura for a moment before he drew it back under control.
'Fight him tomorrow, Chrollo. Show me what he becomes when you reach the parts I haven't touched.'
A card turned slowly between Hisoka's fingers.
'Then I'll take whatever survives.'
---
Shortly before three in the morning, Yuzuki lay flat on a mat in the darkened suite.
He slowed his breathing until the pain in his ribs became part of the rhythm rather than something fighting against it. Then he drew his aura inward and closed his nodes.
Zetsu settled over him.
The constant flood of information from the Six Eyes faded. The rain, distant machinery and aura moving through the floors above became dull enough for his mind to rest.
Four floors higher, Chrollo placed Sarasa's script inside its wooden box and closed the lid.
He sat alone after Pakunoda left, drawing his aura inward until the room became completely still. With Zetsu hiding even his own presence from his senses, he allowed memories he rarely named to surface and disappear without resistance.
Neither slept deeply.
Both found enough silence to reach morning.
At eight o'clock, the announcement echoed through every corridor of Heaven's Arena.
"Will the first Battle Olympia semifinalists, Kagetsu Yuzuki and Chrollo Lucilfer, report to the main arena!"
The storm had passed. Morning light cut between the remaining clouds and reflected from the glass exterior of the tower, while more than fifty thousand spectators filled the arena below.
Yuzuki stood in his dressing room wearing simple black clothes over the tape supporting his ribs and spine. The new blindfold sat securely over his Six Eyes.
He tested one careful breath, feeling the familiar pain in his side and lower back.
The door opened before him, revealing the long tunnel leading toward the arena.
Yuzuki stepped into it and walked toward the light.
---
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