Maha reattached his severed hand, but the old man still looked rough. Nobody expected Ronin to unload that hard inside the room.
That sudden explosion of attacks had even an old monster like him sensing real danger.
"Lost money on this one," Maha muttered, shoving both hands into his pockets. He'd come along as backup and ended up doing most of the heavy lifting while Illumi, the actual hitter, barely lifted a finger.
"Yeah. Didn't expect him to have a teleportation ability already prepped," Illumi said, not sounding too disappointed. "He clearly saw this coming."
"If you ran into him alone right now, you probably wouldn't come out ahead," Maha said, voice serious.
He liked Illumi and didn't want the kid dying on a job that was clearly over his head. This whole mess was a solid lesson: some contracts weren't worth it.
The real fix was still getting Zeno and Silva to handle Chrollo. Take out the client and the whole assassination gig died on its own.
"You calling it quits?" Illumi asked.
"These old bones aren't built for this kind of pounding," Maha answered flatly.
No joke. Ronin had clearly held back at the end—otherwise Maha might not have gotten that hand back at all. When someone gave you that kind of courtesy, chasing them down just made you look like an idiot.
"Guess the mission gets shelved for now," Illumi said, a hint of regret in his tone.
He still had a few tricks that could make Ronin's life miserable, but after two failed attempts he'd learned the guy wasn't easy to kill. Breaking through that defense—the one that took Maha going all-out to crack—was more than Illumi could handle right now.
Even if he somehow got past the armor, actually hurting Ronin's real body would be another nightmare. The guy's Enhancement training was off the charts.
At this point Illumi was sure: Ronin was a Specialist.
But unlike most Specialists who leaned on Conjuration or Manipulation for support, Ronin had maxed out Enhancement, Emission, and Transmutation for pure combat. He could push all three categories to one hundred percent.
Probably thanks to those weird eyes of his.
Interesting.
Illumi narrowed his eyes. Sure, the job stayed at a perfect one-hundred-percent success rate as long as someone killed Chrollo… but he still wanted to be the one who pulled the trigger.
---
Hisoka showed up at the manor a few hours later.
Under Ronin's Palm Technique his injuries healed fast, but the whole process left Hisoka even more curious about exactly what Ronin could do.
The guy seemed to know a little bit of everything.
What was clear was how heavily he relied on those three combat categories.
Of course, Hisoka hadn't seen Ronin controlling Owl with puppet strings yet, so he still figured Ronin's skill in Manipulation and Conjuration was pretty low.
Most ninja techniques could be lumped under Transmutation anyway—especially the five nature transformations.
And his puppet work wasn't exactly masterful; he only controlled one guy and didn't even have real puppets of his own.
"What's your next move?" Ronin asked once the healing was done.
"Going after Chrollo," Hisoka answered, already sounding bored with anything else. Since he couldn't beat Ronin right now, he'd chase the next fun fruit.
Chrollo had always been a top-tier target. Plus the guy had dug up plenty of secrets while investigating Ronin—secrets Hisoka wanted for himself.
Ronin nodded. Letting Hisoka latch on like a leech would keep Chrollo too busy to breathe.
"You'd better hurry," Ronin said with a knowing smirk. "I don't think Chrollo's got long left."
"I'm not giving you his location," Hisoka replied, seeing right through him.
"Don't need it," Ronin said confidently. "If I keep doing what I'm doing, Chrollo's the one who'll crack first. Even if he doesn't have a hundred-percent chance of winning, he'll still come to me."
He didn't believe Chrollo could watch every last Meteor City comrade die and still stay calm while hunting for a guaranteed victory.
"Then it's a race," Hisoka said. "If my fight with Chrollo falls through, I'll come find you again."
"Depends how strong you are by then," Ronin shot back. "If you're still at this level, go fight Kurapika instead."
Hisoka's gaze slid straight to Kurapika.
Besides Ronin and Neon, both Kurapika and Shizuku had caught his interest—especially Kurapika.
The guy was also a Kurta survivor. If he grew as fast as Ronin and had just as many tricks, that would be worth seeing.
Those chains on his hand screamed Conjurer, though. Probably had a whole arsenal of abilities.
Definitely tempting.
"Don't look at me. I'm not interested in fighting you," Shizuku said the second Hisoka turned her way.
Hisoka shrugged, but the bored look in his eyes said he wasn't dropping the idea.
Whether his target wanted the fight had never mattered to him. The only question was whether beating them would feel good.
Right now Kurapika looked more fun than Shizuku.
Still, if she tried to stop him from killing Kurapika, he wouldn't mind warming up on her first.
He doubted he could actually kill either of them—Ronin would never let him run wild.
But the thought of what kind of power Ronin might unleash if he got pissed off by their deaths… now that was interesting.
"I'd advise you not to go looking for death," Ronin said, reading the psychopath like an open book.
Hisoka just stretched his newly healed arm. Ronin's Palm Technique hadn't brought him back to one hundred percent—Ronin said he'd still need time to fully recover.
"Alright, I'm out. Looking forward to the next time we both bring surprises," Hisoka said, eyes lingering on Ronin.
He admitted he'd lost this round, but the sting of it still burned.
>