The shadow clone activated Lightning Style the second it stepped out of the café, wrapping itself in Lightning Style Chakra Mode.
It didn't even glance at the approaching bodyguards. Its only target was the Fourth Prince, and it meant to end him right there at maximum speed.
A streak of lightning cut across the pavement. In the next heartbeat the clone was already past the guards and standing at Tserriednich's side.
Four-Fingered Thrust snapped out, aiming straight for the prince's heart.
What surprised the clone was the sensing-type Nen user exploding into motion fast enough to throw himself in front of the strike.
The piercing force of the thrust should have punched clean through any normal body. Instead the man went flying backward. That amount of aura should never have been enough to stop the attack.
The clone shifted without pausing, hands flashing into seals while chakra gathered in its mouth.
Before the jutsu could fire, Tserriednich's outline began to fade. His eyelids sagged heavily.
Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere!
Chakra bullets shot from the clone's mouth. By then the prince's eyes were fully closed. The spheres passed straight through his body and punched holes in the ground.
The clone understood immediately.
Gunfire erupted as the remaining bodyguards finally drew their weapons.
The clone made no further move. It simply dispersed under the hail of bullets.
In the exact instant it vanished, a grotesque oversized hand materialized behind the space it had occupied. The hand slammed down, carving five deep gouges into the pavement, but it caught nothing.
At the same moment the blood-soaked Eagle—the man the clone had sent flying—collapsed face-first onto the ground and stayed there.
From the café, Ronin's real body watched every detail with perfect clarity.
Two Nen users were protecting the Fourth Prince.
One was the sensing type who had taken the thrust head-on. The other had activated at the critical second, knocking the prince unconscious and transferring him away.
The sensing user hadn't died from the first strike. He must have used some special method—almost certainly a vow and limitation—to burn his own life force for a brief window of near-immortality and one chance to counter. That explained the catastrophic blood loss and why he dropped dead the moment the exchange ended.
Were these guards sent by King Nasubi Hui Guo Rou, or were they the Fourth Prince's own men?
Ronin barely needed to think. They weren't Tserriednich's people. If they belonged to the prince, there would have been no reason to waste the final seconds knocking him out and relocating him.
"We're leaving."
There was no point staying. The prince's location after the transfer was unknown, and the remaining bodyguards were already turning back toward the café.
Inside the café, chaos had broken out.
Ronin made a quiet decision. Record everything that just happened and talk it over with Kurapika later.
Were protectors like these assigned only to the Fourth Prince, or did the other princes have the same coverage?
Testing that would be simple: pick another prince and observe from a distance.
Two princes could be skipped—Benjamin and Camilla. Both already possessed Nen in the original timeline, and their development looked far past the beginner stage. Getting close enough to either without detection would be nearly impossible. Benjamin had an entire military force stacked with Nen users; Camilla controlled large numbers of loyal Untouchables inside her own territory, some of them specifically trained as weapons against the other princes.
A simple probe didn't need those two. Any other prince would do.
Shizuku already had her phone out, filming the entire sequence from across the street. The resolution was garbage, but it would be enough for Kurapika to get the picture.
Neon asked, "Should we track down the one with the transfer ability and remove him?"
Leaving that person alive meant any future attempt on Tserriednich carried a real risk of the prince simply vanishing again.
Ronin nodded. "Yeah."
The café door slammed open. Armed bodyguards poured in and opened fire without a single word of warning, emptying magazines into the room as if everyone inside were automatically guilty.
The gunfire lasted only a few seconds before it cut off.
Every guard who had entered crumpled to the floor. A new shadow clone had already finished the job.
By early the next morning, every television and newspaper in Kakin was running nonstop coverage of the attempt on the Fourth Prince's life.
The only footage available showed the wrecked café and the shattered hotel windows. The attacker himself never appeared on camera.
Even so, a rough sketch of Deidara's face made the front page of every major outlet.
The official bounty listed underneath the sketch sat at one hundred million Jenny. By mid-morning almost every private detective in the capital was already on the move.
At eight o'clock Tserriednich woke up in his oversized bed. The newspaper on the nightstand carried the full story of the attack. He rubbed his aching head and tried to remember any of it.
His memory simply stopped after he had walked into the hotel.
Had the assassin done that to him?