Shizuku tilted her head, puzzled. "Who?"
"The Phantom Troupe."
"I know them." Shizuku nodded. "If you want me to join you, then where's your sincerity?"
"What kind of sincerity do you want?" Ronin asked.
"If you bring me Spence's head, I'll join your team," Shizuku said calmly, then added, "If the Phantom Troupe comes to invite me, I'll give them the same condition."
"Wasn't Spence killed by your father?" Ronin asked.
Shizuku shook her head. "No. He's not dead. It was all a trap he set."
"Alright." Ronin agreed, and from Shizuku's words it was obvious Damian's intel wasn't complete.
There was more going on in the story about Shizuku's father.
"Mhm." Shizuku pushed up her glasses. "Since you agreed, tell me your name. If you succeed, we can meet here again. Then I can go with you and follow your arrangements."
"Ronin. And I already told you once." Ronin frowned slightly. "Also, no need to be that roundabout—we can just go hit them directly."
"Okay. I'll remember you, Ronin." Shizuku said it while turning her gaze toward the window, and she didn't even rush to leave.
The tank outside was already closing in.
"I'll handle it." Ronin stood up, ignored the remaining snacks on the table, stuffed his manga into his bag, put his mask back on, and walked out.
Shizuku muttered softly, "Ronin, Ronin… seems like a good person, but what he does isn't very 'good.'"
Then she followed him out, expressionless.
No matter what, she didn't want this house—one that still stirred up warm memories—to vanish.
Shizuku rubbed her head. Lately she felt like she'd forgotten a lot, but… it was probably unimportant stuff.
Outside the house, Ronin looked at the Nen user on the tank—who immediately shifted into a combat posture upon seeing him—and couldn't help thinking that Meteor City had a surprisingly high density of ability users.
The root cause was probably the city's brutal culture.
As he thought that, Ronin's eyes flicked toward the car in the distance—Damian's car.
Damian hadn't left either. He'd driven into an alley to avoid being crushed by the tank.
They might still need Damian to investigate Spence, and they'd likely need his help to leave safely afterward.
If Damian ran now, Ronin would have to contact Hisoka again—and that would be annoying.
Ronin refocused. The hawk-nosed man atop the tank spoke, looking down at him.
"Who are you?"
Ronin scanned him: tall and thin, callused hands, a pistol at the waist, a vicious look in his eyes, and that hooked-nose face—like a grim vulture.
"Stupid question." Ronin had zero interest in answering. He crouched slightly as aura surged into his fist.
Then he vanished.
Boom!
Without waiting for orders, the tank crew reacted perfectly the moment Ronin disappeared from their targeting view.
Smoke puffed from the main cannon—
and the shell flying out suddenly had a big foot on it.
A savage force burst from that foot, stopping the shell midair and driving it down into the ground.
At the same moment behind Ronin, Shizuku conjured an odd vacuum cleaner with a mouth.
That was her Nen ability—Blinky.
One end was a storage function; the other had eyes, a mouth, and teeth.
Shizuku could order Blinky to suck up anything she considered "not alive," and it could spit it out later at will.
Boom!
The shell exploded the moment it hit the ground. But Ronin—who had stomped it down—took no damage.
Instead, riding the explosion's shockwave, he shot toward the tank even faster.
Enhancement was supposed to be unfair. That was Ronin's idea of Enhancement.
His current body strength plus Nen defense was already enough to tank the blast shock.
Thud!
His fist slammed into the cannon barrel.
The steel barrel bent visibly, as if crumpling.
The hawk-nosed man didn't retreat. When Ronin vaulted onto the tank and punched at him, the man raised an arm and struck back at the same time.
Ronin's vision blurred for an instant—the man's arm seemed to "disappear" briefly.
But that couldn't fool the Sharingan's dynamic sight. It wasn't an Emitter "teleport." It was just a burst of extreme speed—leaning closer to Enhancement.
Ronin could see the arm's path and the aura wrapped around it.
That snake-like strike was likely the man's Hatsu.
Ronin's punch trajectory didn't change, but he adjusted his aura, concentrating more Nen at the point where the strike would land.
The exchange happened in a blink.
The hawk-nosed man's "snake mouth" strike landed on Ronin's arm, while Ronin's fist smashed into the other arm that had been raised to block.
Both abilities activated at once.
Ronin felt a sharp impact on his arm, like being pecked by a woodpecker.
But the man's blocking arm bent in an unnatural arc under Ronin's heavy punch.
Yet Ronin didn't hear bone breaking.
The hawk-nosed man stepped back quickly, trying to open distance.
Ronin's eyes locked onto the man's arm: it drooped soft and boneless—then Nen flowed, and it snapped back up again, whipping like a lash toward Ronin as he chased.
Snake? Whip?
Ronin's mind flickered with confusion, but his hands moved fast. He opened his fist into a claw shape and grabbed for the arm.
If blunt force couldn't crush it, he'd use raw power to seize and tear it apart.
The hawk-nosed man sensed Ronin's intent.
Nen surged through his arm, and the soft limb stiffened instantly. He formed his fingers into a "snake mouth," slipping past Ronin's grab—and then shot straight at Ronin's chest.
But Ronin saw everything. Before the strike could land, Ronin switched mid-motion, changing from a grab into a knife-hand and chopping sideways into the arm.
At the moment of contact, Ronin felt something off again—
the arm softened once more. The chop didn't sever it or even cut it; it only weakened the impact of the chest strike.
But in that exchange, Ronin finally understood the mechanism.
This was a hybrid ability—Transmutation plus Enhancement, altering a body part's form.
In other words, the man could make his arm shift instantly between boneless softness and steel-hard rigidity.