Ronin understood what Netero was about to do, and the understanding landed hard.
The only reason he had been able to take those slaps, reset in midair, and come back at Netero like the Ant King was the Great Waterfall Crash. Without that hanging water, a hit from the 100-Type would have sent him the way it had sent Neferpitou—out of the fight and out of sight.
The water was gone. He was locked into speed. He could not spare the hands to cast it again.
The next palm would decide where he landed.
Even if Super Lightened Boulder kept him in the air after that, closing the gap the way he just had was finished.
"Hoh. Looks like the ground's against you."
The words arrived by a route that should not have worked. Fist-Listening carried them straight into Ronin's ear, dry and almost amused.
The Guanyin's hand formed in front of him at eight meters.
The impact was total. Ronin left the platform like a baseball off a bat.
Checkmate.
Super Lightened Boulder caught him over empty air. Hovering was easy. Getting back to Netero was not.
He still had scrolls. The torn-up feeling in his body was already easing under the Strength of a Hundred.
A step short. If he had done more during the charge—anything extra—he might have been able to put himself back on the roof even after a slap like that. Tearing a clone scroll open had already been the ceiling. Asking him to throw a Flying Thunder God kunai in the same state was asking for a different man.
He drifted until he was over the crown of Trick Tower. The disappointment did not show.
Netero had not gone all the way. Ronin knew the last card by name. 100-Type Guanyin: Zero. If that one came out, the Strength of a Hundred would not put him back together.
He landed. Most of the damage was already closed. The Yin Seal on his brow had folded itself back into the diamond.
"So. Am I qualified?"
Netero laughed.
"Barely."
Ronin smiled. The door had moved.
It also meant the lock Netero kept on Beyond was not simple spite. There was a reason under it.
"Chairman. Is that all the technique hits for?"
Zero would spike. He had felt that much. Everything before it had sat on one line. No surge. No extra weight. Either Netero was holding it there on purpose, or the 100-Type had spent its growth on speed and let power thin out.
To Ronin, a slap that could not blow him apart in one stroke was the weak half of the pair.
"I'm old," Netero said. "Not much use."
Ronin's eyes lit.
"Want to be younger?"
He still had the Witch's Youth Potion. If Netero wanted it, he would share.
"Greed Island item."
Netero had the thought before Ronin finished it. He turned and started walking toward the airship, talking over his shoulder.
"No need. This is fine."
Ronin did not understand it. He let it stand.
He had expected the answer before he ever boarded. A man in Netero's seat could have pulled the file in an afternoon. The ease of the refusal said the thinking was already done.
He dropped it.
"The year you went to the Dark Continent. Just the three of you?"
Netero glanced at him, actually surprised.
"Yes. You've done your homework."
Not many people knew. Nothing had been written down. Someone old had talked, then.
"What do you give me for coming back alive?"
Ronin turned his head toward Beans.
"Can you get me clothes? Thanks."
"Ah?" Beans blinked. "I—yes. Fine."
"I don't know why that place pulls at you the way it does," Netero said. "There were three of us. Subtract the giant dung pits and the rest of the scenery, and you could almost call it a vacation."
He considered.
"Your odds. Fifty percent."
Ronin stared.
That was what strength sounded like when it stopped performing. The number itself was ordinary. Mid-table. No romance in it.
"Then I need to plan."
Netero looked at him under half-lids.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, kid. Slipping across is not a mood. Do you have a ship? A map? Can you tell food from poison? Can you dress a kill? Can you put yourself back together—are you ready to die?"
"Give me the route and the method. I'll pull people for the rest."
Ronin was still smiling.
The Dark Continent was not a place you walked into because you felt like it. Confidence in his own output did not cancel the list.
Netero did not answer. He led Ronin back to the cabin they had left.
He sat. He poured tea. He drank it slowly.
"Why do you want the Dark Continent?"
"To stay away from Beyond." Ronin shrugged. "He's looking at me."
"He won't reach it soon."
Netero said it like a fact.
"Not while you're alive."
Ronin did not dress it.
Netero's mouth tucked up.
"You really do know a lot. So earlier. Did you actually mean to kill me?"
"No. I don't want a seat on Beyond's crew."
That was the truth. Whether he could win and whether he wanted the Chairman dead were different questions. He had never wanted Netero in the ground.
He wanted the opposite. As long as Netero lived, Beyond could build whatever plan he liked. The Dark Continent would stay closed.