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Netero took Ronin's group into a cabin with tea set out.
They sat across from each other. Netero poured himself a cup before he spoke, unhurried.
"So. Has he already decided to kill this old man?"
The first sentence stopped Ronin for a beat.
"You know?"
"Of course." Netero shrugged. "He's been sour with me since I barred him from that place. Wanting me dead is ordinary. I even look forward to seeing how he tries it this time." A small laugh.
"What if he tries it in a way that doesn't care what else dies?" Ronin said. "Hundreds of thousands. Maybe a million."
Netero's brow ticked.
"That does sound like him. I still can't do anything but wait."
Extreme. That was the word Ronin had for Beyond. Hearing Netero talk, it was the word the Chairman used too.
"Why?" Ronin asked.
If he could help it, he did not want a pile of bystanders in the ground. The Chimera Ants would drag NGL's rot into the light. That did not mean the ordinary people living there should pay for a father-and-son fight.
"I can't find him," Netero said.
Not the answer Ronin had expected.
"An ability?"
"Yes."
Ronin frowned. If that was the lock, there was no key from this chair.
"Leave Beyond," Netero said. His eyes sharpened, the look of a man who thought he could see through a skull. "You came with more than one item."
Ronin nodded.
"I want to know how you reached the Dark Continent with only friends."
"You want to sneak across too?" No surprise in it.
"Yes."
Netero's trip with Zigg and Linne had never gone into an official file. Off the books. A crossing the world did not stamp.
"I refuse."
No pause. Ronin had not expected one. A man who would block his own son was not going to hand a stranger a road to the outside.
"Then I'll take it," Ronin said, and poured himself tea.
The route was one reason. The other was simpler. He wanted a number on the gap between himself and the Chairman. So he said it in the open.
Netero stared. Then the smile filled a face that did not look as old as it was.
"You really don't know what you're poking."
The old man's aura came up in a single pulse. Ronin's rose with it, dragged out and detonated. The table between them split down the middle and came apart.
The three sitting behind Ronin were thrown back in their chairs. Shock wiped their faces clean.
Light snapped in Netero's eyes. The grin would not stay down.
"Different room. I don't intend to put this ship in the water."
He stood and walked out.
The candidates were already gone from the roof. Beans came hurrying across the deck, then stopped short when he saw Netero leading Ronin's group off the airship. Surprise sat on him and stayed there. Nobody spoke to him. They went straight to the platform at the top of Trick Tower.
It was a good ring.
"Show me what you have."
Netero rolled his shoulders. There was no fight in his eyes. Ronin had not earned that yet.
Ronin had expected it. This was still the strongest Nen user alive. He set his stance with care. No ninjutsu. A taijutsu open.
Netero planted his feet and crooked a finger.
Ronin left the spot he was standing on.
Beans, watching from the side, still had not parsed the first exchange. He only saw that Ronin had swung on the Chairman, and privately gave him credit for nerve. It had been a long time since he had seen Netero move.
Neon watched the platform with her jaw tight. She had felt Netero's aura when he loosened up. Ronin's output already sat in a range that made people stare. Netero was not serious yet, and what he was leaking already felt larger. Add a hundred years of work on top of that and the number he could actually put on the floor was not something she wanted to imagine.
Could Ronin win?
The question was not only hers. It was in Shizuku and Abachi too.
They were not the only ones watching the roof. Lippo sat in Trick Tower's monitor room and stared at the feed.
He had taken money to put Ronin in a room with the Chairman. He had not taken money for the kid to start a fight.
His eyes bent into smug little crescents.
"He doesn't know his own weight."
His faith in Netero was absolute. The headache was what came after. A Hunter Exam did not run on examiners alone. There were invigilators. Association people with real teeth. Most of them had not opened Nen, but they were close. They watched the candidates. They watched the staff. Anything off-script went upstairs, written down clean.
If the airship had simply left after Ronin boarded, Lippo would have eaten a fine and a public slap. He could live with that.
This looked like the end of the examiner post. No post meant no free bodies to test the new traps he had built into the tower. Candidates were good test weights. You did not find that quality on the street.
"I'm in the red," he started.
Then his eyes went wide.
On the platform, Ronin and Netero were already moving.
Profit and loss dropped out of his head. One thought took the space.
Monsters.