The card was simple, stark white with black embossed lettering: LEON. Below it, a local Yorknew number. No title, no family crest, no flourishes. It was a direct line, an offering of contact from within the beast's own belly. Kevin pocketed it, the weight of the gesture not lost on him. This 'Leon' was playing a dangerous game, betting that a warning now might be worth a favor later—or perhaps simply trying to survive the crossfire.
Kevin didn't leave the alley. If hunters were coming, this controlled environment was preferable to the crowded hotel lobby or a public transport hub. He leaned against the damp brick, expanding his En to a fifteen-meter sphere. The city's nocturnal hum—distant traffic, a whirring ventilation fan, the scuttle of something small in a dumpster—painted a sonic map in his mind. Then, new brushstrokes appeared: three distinct auras, approaching with the focused intent of predators, their Nen signatures abrasive against his senses.
One felt like a grinding stone, dense and heavy (Enhancement). Another was a piercing needle of focused energy (Emission). The third was slippery, shifting, hard to define (Manipulation or Conjuration). Arena fighters, most likely. Skilled in direct, overpowering combat, but possibly predictable.
He assessed his toolkit. Three Iron Wall Potions, two Blank Meteor, the rest irrelevant for combat. His own Nen was primed, the hexagonal transformation a ready instinct. His lack of a dedicated offensive Hatsu was a weakness, but his physical prowess and potion-enhanced adaptability were his strengths.
Strategy: Control the terrain. Isolate. Disable.
The Enhancer entered the alley first, a mountain of muscle that seemed to make the narrow space smaller. He cracked his knuckles, the sound like popping gravel. "Time's up, alchemist. You're coming with us."
Kevin responded by drinking an Iron Wall Potion, the liquid cool as it activated the transformative principle within his aura, reinforcing his body's natural defenses with an invisible, geometric lattice.
The Enhancer charged, a surprisingly fast avalanche. Kevin met the charge not with evasion, but with a rooted stance, forming a Ren-reinforced hexagonal shield over his forearm. The collision was thunderous, dust erupting from their feet. The Enhancer's fist, capable of crushing concrete, was halted dead, the force dissipated across the unyielding structure. Before shock could turn to adjustment, Kevin's other hand shot forward, fingers rigid with Shu, targeting a precise nerve cluster on the man's brachial plexus. It was a fencer's touch, not a brawler's punch. The Enhancer grunted, his arm falling momentarily limp as he stumbled back.
A searing line of light—the Emission attack—lanced from a rooftop fire escape, aiming to bisect Kevin. He was already a blur of motion, the beam scoring a molten line where he'd stood. Sniper. Needs sightlines.
The third attacker, the slippery one, used the distraction. Kevin felt a invasive pressure, a Manipulation attempt to cloud his mind with lethargy and doubt. It was a subtle, insidious attack, the kind arena fighters rarely faced.
Kevin gritted his teeth. He had no specialized mental defense. So he fought finesse with force. He channelled the raw surge of a Blank Meteor potion into his Ren, not to enhance his muscles, but to make his aura burn hotter, brighter, more defined. He visualized the hexagon—solid, structured, learned. His aura flared into a coruscating, geometric corona, a blazing lighthouse of will that pushed back the formless mental fog. It was wasteful, blunt, but it bought him a second of crystal clarity.
In that second, he saw the Enhancer recovering, roaring as he gathered Nen for a massive two-handed smash. The Manipulator, confident his psychic attack had at least slowed his prey, emerged from the shadows, hands weaving intricate patterns to bind Kevin with Nen strings.
They were both committed, close, and underestimating his next move.
Kevin dropped low and slammed his palm—coated in the reinforced, hexagonal Shu—onto the alley floor.
Iron Wall: Pavement.
It wasn't a true Hatsu. It was a violent, instantaneous application of the potion's transformative principle, supercharged by Blank Meteor and forced through his will. He focused not on the whole alley, but on a one-meter circle under the Enhancer's leading foot and the Manipulator's stance.
The asphalt didn't just harden. Its molecular structure transformed, snapping into a rigid, interlocking, and perfectly frictionless hexagonal lattice.
The Enhancer's foot, planted for his devastating swing, slid forward as if on sheer ice. His colossal momentum became his enemy. He pitched forward with a roar of surprise, his mighty swing turning into a wild, unbalanced stumble. The Manipulator, mid-casting, also lost all footing, his graceful patterns dissolving into a frantic scramble for balance.
Kevin moved. He was a phantom flowing past the flailing Enhancer. As he passed the falling Manipulator, the edge of his hand—hardened into a razor-sharp hexagonal plane—swiped out in a short, clinical arc. Not to kill, but to sever the hamstrings. The Manipulator screamed, collapsing into a heap.
He pivoted to the Enhancer, who was trying to rise on the impossible surface. Before the man could find purchase, Kevin closed the distance and delivered a single, devastating Ko punch. All the enhanced force of the potion, focused into a fist wrapped in hexagonal reinforcement, drove into the solar plexus.
The air blasted from the Enhancer's lungs in a voiceless wheeze. His eyes lost focus, and he toppled like a felled tree, unconscious.
Across the alley, the Emission user was struggling to his feet in the rubble of the fire escape, one arm hanging uselessly. He saw his partners defeated in a span of heartbeats. He met Kevin's gaze. There was no rage in Kevin's eyes, only a cold, analytical assessment, like a chemist observing a completed reaction. The sniper made the only rational choice. He turned and fled, vanishing into the Yorknew night.
Silence returned, broken only by the pained gasps of the hamstrung Manipulator. The fight had lasted less than a minute.
Kevin let the potion surges ebb, feeling the familiar draining fatigue. He walked to the Manipulator, who looked up at him with a mixture of agony and terror.
"Tell Saro Tedoruka," Kevin said, his voice unnervingly calm, "his investment has depreciated. Further acquisitions will require exponentially higher capital, with no guarantee of return. The cost of my annoyance has been recalculated. He will find the new rates... prohibitive."
He didn't wait for a reply. He stepped over the fallen men and exited the alley, melting back into the stream of Yorknew's indifferent nightlife. He took a long, circuitous route back to his hotel, his En a constant, vigilant sphere.
In his room, he packed with swift efficiency. The confrontation was a definitive escalation. Yorknew was no longer tenable.
He took out the simple white card. LEON. He input the number into a secure, encrypted messaging app on a burner device and sent a single, context-less word:
"Acknowledged."
Then, he wiped the device. The debt was noted. The line was open.
Shouldering his pack, he became a shadow once more, slipping out of the hotel. The glittering, oppressive canyon of Yorknew City faded behind him as he headed for the blimp port. The skirmish was over. He had defended his ground and issued a sterner warning. But the larger conflict with his past simmered on. The Hunter Exam was his strategic objective, his path to shifting the entire balance of power. The mountains, Mito, and the first real test awaited. The next move in the game would be played on his chosen board.
The bandaged man scowled, his grated voice sharp. "You think you can buy us? Our reputation on the Arena circuit is worth more than a quick bribe!"
Kevin's expression remained placid, but internally, the calculation was complete. One hundred million jenny each for low-tier Nen users with arena experience. Saro is either cheap, or his available funds for this 'retrieval' are severely limited. Probably both. This wasn't a serious investment; it was a petulant slap, an attempt to solve a problem with pocket change. It was, in a way, more insulting than a genuine threat.
"The math is simple," Kevin said, his voice cutting through the night air. "Four hundred million split three ways is roughly one-thirty-three million each. But your employer added a surcharge for 'alive and mostly intact,' which likely bumped it to one-fifty. You inflated it to me to make your refusal seem more principled. The truth is, you're cheap labor."
The three exchanged glances, their bravado flickering. He'd nailed their fee structure and their petty deception.
"Enough talk!" the thuggish one snarled, his aura flaring—a blunt, aggressive Ren that spoke of Enhancer tendencies. "We're taking you in. Easy or hard, your choice!"
The hooded man's aura shifted, becoming sinuous and probing—a Manipulator testing the waters. The bandaged one's energy focused into sharp, needle-like points around his fingers: a Transmuter, likely mimicking the properties of a blade or piercing tool.
Kevin didn't wait for them to coordinate. He moved, but not toward them. He took three rapid steps back and to the side, putting the bulk of his abandoned suitcase between himself and the direct line of the Enhancer's charge.
As the Enhancer bull-rushed forward, Kevin's hand dipped into his coat. He didn't pull out a potion. He flung a handful of coarse, gray powder—crushed Luminous Lotus Pollen he'd been carrying for stabilization experiments—directly into the man's face.
It wasn't an attack. It was a catalyst.
The pollen, charged with a minute spark of Kevin's Ren, reacted not with the man, but with the man's own raging aura. It acted as an unstable harmonic resonator. The Enhancer's simple, powerful Ren fluctuated, surging unpredictably for a critical second. He didn't lose his power, but he lost his control, stumbling as his own energy rebounded chaotically.
In that moment of disruption, the Manipulator's subtle threads of influence, which had been sneaking toward Kevin, also wavered and snapped, their connection to his own now-chaotic ally broken.
Kevin was already turning to the Transmuter, the bandaged man whose sharpened Nen- claws gleamed in the dim light. Kevin didn't raise a guard. He simply pointed a finger at him.
"Blank Meteor: Burst."
He didn't drink the potion. He uncorked a vial and, using a focused pulse of Shu, sprayed a fine mist of the potion directly at the Transmuter's face and upper chest.
The Transmuter flinched back, expecting poison or acid. It was neither. It was a concentrated formula designed to trigger a massive, immediate surge of physical power upon ingestion or deep tissue absorption. Contact with skin and inhalation was a poor, inefficient delivery system—it caused a violent, localized, and utterly uncontrolled muscular spasm.
The bandaged man's body convulsed. His own transmuted Nen claws, meant for offense, jerked wildly. One gashed his own thigh. Another scraped across the hooded Manipulator's arm as he tried to steady his ally. The Manipulator cried out in pain and surprise, his concentration shattered.
The fight had lasted less than ten seconds. No elegant exchanges, no clashing auras. One target was choking on his own power, one was convulsing and bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, and the third was clutching a bleeding arm, his techniques in tatters.
Kevin walked over to the Enhancer, who was now on his knees, coughing as he tried to reassert control over his rebellious aura. Kevin placed a hand on the man's shoulder, not with force, but with a precise application of Zetsu, momentarily suppressing the chaotic Nen and forcing calm.
"Listen carefully," Kevin said, his voice low and utterly devoid of heat. "You will go back to Saro Tedoruka. You will tell him this: The price for my annoyance is now one billion jenny per hour, payable in advance, for me to even consider listening to another word from him. The cost of sending retrieval agents is two billion per agent, non-refundable, payable upon their failure, which you will now demonstrate. Tell him his credit is poor and his offerings are insulting. If he wishes to negotiate further, he must speak to my business manager after I obtain my Hunter's license. Am I understood?"
The Enhancer, pale and shaken, could only nod.
Kevin released him, stepping back. He looked at the three battered, humiliated men. "Your fee is insufficient to cover the damages you've caused to my travel schedule. Consider your contract void due to client misrepresentation of target difficulty. Now, get in your car and leave. If I see you again, I will invoice Saro for your remains as hazardous waste disposal."
He didn't watch them scramble into their vehicle and speed away, tires screeching. He picked up his suitcase, dusted it off, and began walking the remaining distance to the airport under the cold Yorknew stars. The encounter was beneath the level of a true challenge. It was administrative. A nuisance to be processed and a bill to be sent.
As he walked, he refined the message in his mind. Saro was a petty bureaucrat in a criminal empire, trying to balance a ledger with stolen assets. Kevin was moving beyond ledgers. The Hunter Exam wasn't just a test; it was an incorporation, a move from being an asset on someone else's spreadsheet to founding his own enterprise. The alchemist was open for business, but the terms of service were now exclusively his to set. And the first clause was a steep, non-negotiable retainer fee for wasting his time.
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