The abandoned warehouse outside Yorknew City hummed with a tense, frustrated silence. Chrollo Lucilfer, the Troupe's leader, sat atop a rubble pile, a book open in his hands, a portrait of calm amid the simmering agitation. The air was heavy with the scent of damp concrete and unresolved violence.
Shalnark's approach broke the quiet. "No anomalous data. No traces on any transport grid. It's as if they evaporated."
Footsteps echoed from the entrance then, heralding the return of the scouts. Feitan entered, his movements marked by a stiff, barely-contained fury. Though his injuries from Kevin were severe, they lacked the lingering curse of Post-mortem Nen. Unlike the others, his physical pain was a secondary fuel to the humiliation burning within him. He had ignored all advice to rest, scouring the city's underbelly with a single-minded obsession: find the ambusher and make his death an art project.
Their hollow expressions told the story. The hunt had yielded nothing.
"The noise you made out there," Shalnark said, adjusting his phone with a sigh. "It's created interference. You may have trampled over the very clues we need."
Feitan merely clicked his tongue in dismissal, his dark eyes scanning the shadows as if his prey might materialize from them.
"We found nothing useful," reported another member. "Perhaps they never circled back here at all."
"I think they're in the city," Nobunaga stated from where he leaned against a wall, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, his own body still wrestling with the weakening Nen clinging to him.
"Intuition?" Shalnark asked, not skeptically, but as a data point.
"Intuition," Nobunaga confirmed.
Shalnark nodded, inputting the subjective analysis into his mental calculations. "Even if they are, finding three needles in a metropolis of millions is a statistical nightmare. If they have professional backing… it becomes functionally impossible."
The soft, definitive thud of a book closing silenced the murmurs. All eyes turned to Chrollo. He sat, serene and final.
"The pursuit has failed. We terminate the operation." His voice was calm, leaving no room for debate. "Our priority now is the residue. The grudges must be addressed."
Feitan's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching in his cheek. The fury in his eyes was a live wire, but he swallowed his protest. The Leader's logic was irrefutable. The problem of the Post-mortem Nen was escalating. Uvogin, a master Enhancer with a body of legendary resilience, was constantly flexing his injured arm, a deep scowl on his face. A parasitic, vengeful energy circulated there, stubbornly resisting his aura and sapping his legendary strength. If he was being hindered this way, the others afflicted—Phinks, Nobunaga—were in worse states. Their collective combat power, the Troupe's core, was dangerously compromised.
Phinks, his own arm resting unnaturally at his side, gave Feitan's good shoulder a commiserating thump. "Let it go for now. He saved those two. That means he's invested. He'll come for us eventually. We just have to be patient. The prey will walk into the den on its own."
"Hah! I'm looking forward to it!" Uvogin boomed, then grimaced as he rotated his shoulder, the motion clearly painful.
Feitan's gaze snapped to the giant, burning with possessive intensity. "He's my kill."
Uvogin met his stare, then shrugged—a gesture that also made him wince. "Can't help that. If he swings at me first, I'm not going to just stand there and take it."
A cold "Hmph" was Feitan's only reply.
At Tengu Airport, the mood was one of controlled relief. Light Nostra watched as his daughter, his trusted lieutenants, and rows of crisp-suited soldiers boarded the private airship. Kevin, Pairo, and Rosana moved among them, indistinguishable from the other new "recruits." Only when the hatch sealed and the city began to shrink below them did Light allow the rigid line of his shoulders to soften. He exhaled, a long, slow breath he felt he'd been holding for days.
The pressure had been immense. Without the foresight granted by Neon's prophecy, he would have undoubtedly cracked, his fear betraying them all. The pursuers—the Phantom Troupe—had been like a force of nature, carving a brutal, bloody path through the city's information networks. Rational knowledge of safety did nothing to calm the primal fear that had stolen his sleep.
"It's been a real trouble for you these past few days," Kevin said, taking the seat opposite him in the quiet lounge. His tone was genuine, acknowledging the unspoken strain.
Light waved a dismissive hand, lifting a cup of tea to his lips. The familiar ritual was grounding. "It's passed now," he said, the simplicity of the statement belying the ordeal. After days in close quarters, a perfunctory camaraderie had settled between them, a mask over the intricate game they were both playing. The airship droned onward, carrying them away from one danger and deeper into the quiet, uncertain sanctuary Light provided.
The plush interior of the airship's lounge seemed to contract around them. Light's offer of indefinite sanctuary—"the friendship of the Nostra Family"—hung in the air, a promise too generous to be taken at face value. Kevin's response was not words, but an action. He reached into his jacket and produced a carefully folded piece of paper, handing it across the low table.
"This is a young man named Kurapika. He may come looking for us. If he does, please don't hinder him. Bring him to me."
Light accepted the paper, his curiosity appearing natural. He unfolded it, his eyes scanning the sketched features. In that instant, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift occurred—a flicker of recognition, of confirmation, that was there and gone in a heartbeat. But for Kevin, who had been studying Light's every micro-expression with the intensity of a survivalist reading terrain, it was a glaring signal.
He knows. The conviction solidified in Kevin's mind. He not only knows of Kurapika, but he expected him. The earlier strange looks at Pairo and Rosana, the preemptive hospitality—it all pointed to foreknowledge. But the source? A connection to the Kurta clan? Some form of precognition? The puzzle pieces were too few, the picture maddeningly incomplete.
His silent analysis was interrupted by the drone of the airship's television. News footage filled the screen: the grim, rain-soaked clearing in Nancha forest, rows of covered forms, and the chilling, explicit details of the massacre. The anchor's voice was grave, notes left at the scene explicitly naming the perpetrators—the Phantom Troupe.
A murmur of horrified discussion rippled through the mafia members present. "Even we have limits," one muttered, a sentiment echoed by others. It was a brutality that transcended their own criminal calculus.
From the corner of his eye, Kevin saw Pairo's small frame tremble, the boy's knuckles white where they gripped the armrest. Rosana sat statue-still, her breathing deliberately controlled. Their pain was a palpable, silent scream in the cabin.
But Kevin's primary focus remained locked on Light. The man watched the broadcast with the detached, somber interest of a concerned citizen. There was no shock of new revelation, no flicker of personal dread or connection. His expression was a flawless mask of appropriate dismay.
The dissonance was absolute. A man who seemed to know their story in advance showed no recognition of its most horrific chapter playing out on live television. It was the final, illogical piece.
"Light," Kevin said, his voice cutting cleanly through the ambient noise. It was not loud, but its directness had the weight of a blade being drawn. "Are you hiding something from me?"
Light's head turned toward him. The reaction was controlled, but Kevin saw it: the slightest catch in his breath, the unconscious, minute tension in the jaw, and a single, betraying bead of cold sweat tracing a path down his temple before being swiftly brushed away.
As expected, Kevin thought, his own posture deceptively relaxed. It couldn't be hidden anymore.
The game of gracious host and grateful guest had just reached its precipice.
In a sun-dappled street of a city not far from Nancha, the world was still bright and mundane. Kurapika moved through the crowd, a figure of golden-haired curiosity, his spirit momentarily unburdened. The normalcy was a balm.
He paused by an electronics store, drawn by a cluster of murmuring onlookers. A television screen showed a familiar, dreadful landscape. The newscaster's words—hundreds… decapitated… eyes removed… Kurta clan…—hammered into his consciousness like nails.
The cheerful chatter around him warped into a distant buzz. The images on the screen—the traditional fabrics, the familiar silhouettes even in death—seared into his vision.
"Impossible… This is impossible!" The denial was a raw, torn sound from his throat, more animal than human. He stumbled back, bumping into a man who turned, complaint dying on his lips at the sight of Kurapika's face—a mask of shattered horror, his eyes wide pools of escalating crimson.
The dam broke. "NO!" He whirled, shoving through the crowd, the sunny street now a tunnel of nightmare. He ran, blind to direction, the echoes of the bystanders' pitying whispers chasing him—"Look at his clothes… just like the news… poor kid…"—but he was already gone, fleeing into a reality that had just been annihilated.
From the shadowed mouth of a nearby alley, a figure leaned against the brickwork. In his hand was a copy of the same portrait Kevin had drawn. His eyes followed the fleeing streak of gold and despair. He brought a small, discreet communicator to his lips.
"Target sighted," he murmured, his voice barely a breath. "The dove is in flight. And he is broken."
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