"So what are we going to do with this woman in the sleeve?"
Liam muttered the question half to himself, his eyes resting on Jade. Machi stood nearby with her arms folded tightly across her chest, throwing a sharp, sidelong glance in their direction.
They were currently seated inside the cabin of a small, cramped airship. Considering Bisky had somehow constructed the entire vessel in a mere ten minutes, its structural integrity was surprisingly solid. Occasionally, the hull would shudder and groan as it hit high-altitude air currents, but everyone inside remained perfectly balanced, sitting or standing as if their feet were bolted to the floorboards.
The only exception was Kurapika. Still unconscious and lying flat on his back, a sudden bout of turbulence sent him rolling half a circle across the floor. Lumos, resting lazily nearby in his massive tiger form, simply raised a heavy paw and nudged the blond youth back into his original position before resting his chin on his front legs again. Jaku hopped twice, its little claws landing directly on Kurapika's feverishly hot forehead, and tilted its head left and right as if standing guard.
The cabin was relatively quiet. Liam and Shizuku sat together on one side of the narrow space. Opposite them, Menchi and Bisky sat cross-legged on the floor in deep meditation. Machi stood like a statue next to Menchi, her expression entirely blank as she leaned her shoulder against the cold metal bulkhead.
Bisky kept her eyes closed, her breathing slow and rhythmic as she circulated aura throughout her entire body. Standing right beside her was a Nen beast that looked exactly like a beautiful, eighteen-year-old massage therapist straight out of a high-end salon. The young woman moved gracefully around Bisky, her hands glowing with a soft, warm light. She applied expert massage techniques from a short distance, using a specialized Nen oil to accelerate Bisky's physical recovery.
Shizuku watched intently. She focused on the space just below Bisky's right sleeve. Where a severed stump had been, a fresh limb was sprouting like a pale mushroom after a spring rain. Muscle, bone, and skin knit together, growing outward section by section at a speed easily visible to the naked eye.
Shizuku analyzed the technique in her head. Bisky used Nen oil directly for combat purposes. However, outside of a fight, she had specifically developed this Nen beast to handle auxiliary tasks like treatment, recovery, beautification, and body conditioning. By dividing the labor this way, Bisky achieved maximum efficiency. It allowed her to completely eliminate any distracting thoughts from her mind, leaving her free to concentrate purely on combat and training.
The true utility of a Nen beast, Shizuku realized, or at least the guiding ideology behind creating one, was to help the main body discard mental clutter. It acted like a trash can for the user's unnecessary burdens.
She made a mental note of the concept, committing the lesson to memory.
"A Nen ability is a reflection of the heart," Liam said, breaking the silence. "So what kind of desire does a person have in their heart to develop the ability to read memories and write memories?"
He looked down at his own Nen beast, or more accurately, at the wide sleeve of the Taoist robe currently acting as a prison for Pakunoda. Then, he shifted his gaze to Machi.
Machi looked away from him, her eyes briefly flicking toward Shizuku, who was sitting next to Liam with her usual spaced-out, airheaded expression. Looking at Shizuku seemed to trigger a memory for Machi. It was the memory of the airship crash that had killed Kortopi, and her brief encounter with Shizuku during that chaos. She silently compared that past moment to the current reality they were stuck in.
"I think the keyword is probably companion," Liam continued, speaking aloud to no one in particular. His tone took on an analytical edge. "Because she is lonely, she desperately wants to know what the people around her are thinking. She wants to know if they are sad, if they are afraid, or if they are happy. It is a very big-sister way of thinking, wanting to take care of absolutely everyone she can."
He leaned back slightly, staring up at the ceiling. "But here is the problem. Even the smartest person in the world cannot use language to convey their feelings with one hundred percent accuracy. Words fall short. Thoughts get misunderstood. Being misunderstood is the inescapable fate of the speaker, after all. Ordinary people only have words to rely on. But if you are a Nen user, the rules are different. Nen is the mind. The heart is Nen, and absolute sincerity exists purely in thought. A direct memory cannot be disguised, faked, or misinterpreted by anyone."
Machi's eyes snapped back to Liam, the cold indifference in her gaze rapidly sharpening into raw hostility.
"Did I get something wrong?" Liam asked, offering a casual smile. "How about you fill in the gaps for me? I am actually really interested in the Phantom Troupe's backstory."
Machi refused to take the bait. "If you harm the Troupe in front of me," she said, her voice dropping to a freezing chill, "I will attack and kill you. That is strictly self-defense. Legitimate self-defense."
"What?" Liam reached up and tapped his ear as if he had misheard her. "Are you just being completely unreasonable now? What kind of twisted logic makes that self-defense? Menchi, there is a massive loophole in the binding you placed on her!"
Menchi opened one eye, looking thoroughly puzzled. "Binding curse? What binding?"
Liam stared at her in disbelief. "The three requirements you gave her. One, become your apprentice. Two, break away from the Phantom Troupe. Three, no killing unless it is in self-defense."
"Yes, just those three," Menchi agreed, nodding.
"Are they really just those three short sentences?"
"Well, yeah. So what?"
Liam let out an exasperated sigh. "Those three conditions, no, those three incredibly vague sentences each have plenty of loopholes to exploit! Just look at what happened. Miss Machi over there just showed you exactly how to exploit the loophole in Article Three. What legally counts as self-defense? Miss Machi clearly has her own highly unique understanding of the concept."
"Oh, I guess it seems like it," Menchi said with a shrug.
"Don't act like this is nothing!" Liam threw his hands up. "One day my life is going to be ruined by your absolute carelessness. I will end up crying myself to death in the afterlife! Requirements are contracts. You don't need to worry about whether they are equal or unequal, but they absolutely must be detailed. Every single constraint needs to be stipulated clearly. How can you just leave massive logical loopholes for someone to exploit?"
Menchi waved a dismissive hand, closing her eye again. "There is nothing logical or illogical about Nen. Close enough is perfectly fine. I think Machi knows exactly what she needs to do in her heart to fulfill the contract."
"She has absolutely no clue!" Liam pointed an accusing finger. "Look at her! She has been staring daggers at me this entire time!"
"You are a very good-looking guy," Menchi teased lazily. "Why can't other people look at you?"
The conversation had started off tense and serious, but as it dragged on, it devolved into the two of them simply bantering back and forth to kill the boredom of the flight.
Still looking at Machi, Liam offered a slight smile and simply pointed his finger downward.
Responding to the command, Jade sank smoothly into the floorboards of the airship.
The Nen beast, completely invisible to the eyes of ordinary people, dropped out of the bottom of the hull and plummeted from the sky. Using the airship flying high over the vast wilderness as a frame of reference, the entity fell straight down like a stone. But using the desolate wasteland below as the reference point, Jade drifted toward the rugged earth in a long, graceful parabolic arc, constantly maintaining her position directly beneath the speeding aircraft.
The setting sun painted the horizon in thick streaks of blood red. Down on the ground, a solitary groundhog poked its head out of the dry dirt, looked around the empty landscape with vigilant eyes, and quickly scurried away into the brush.
Pakunoda found herself standing on the solid ground, staring blankly at the dying light of the sun on the distant horizon. Her mind reeled. She felt as though the scenery in front of her had shifted in a singular, violent flash, dragging her instantly from the claustrophobic confines of a city alleyway to this sprawling, endless wilderness. She had been ripped from the morning straight into this desolate dusk.
The memory of Feitan grabbing her arm, desperately trying to pull her away from the enemy's surprise attack, was still painfully fresh. The physical sensation of his grip was imprinted in her mind, feeling as clear and real as if it had happened only a second ago.
A dry gust of wind blew across the empty wasteland, catching the edges of her clothes. Pakunoda stood completely alone. She tilted her head back and looked up into the darkening sky. High above, she saw the familiar, strange figure in the Taoist robes floating rapidly upward, retreating toward the small, dark silhouette of an airship gliding through the clouds.
"What exactly happened..." she murmured to the empty air.
"What exactly happened in that brief moment when I was imprisoned?"
Pakunoda remained frozen in place, watching the sky until the airship finally disappeared completely beyond the skyline. Only then did she turn around and begin walking slowly in the exact opposite direction of the airship's trajectory.
Her mind worked furiously as she walked, piecing the fragments together.
They didn't talk to me at all. They actively avoided any physical or verbal contact with me. There is no doubt about it. Even though I do not know why, the enemy is fully aware of how my Nen ability works.
They possess information they absolutely do not want leaked. And the thing they want hidden the most is the very reason they know about my ability in the first place, or perhaps how they managed to gather intelligence on the entire Troupe.
Whatever the enemy originally intended to do with her, it was already finished.
If they are so terrified of my Nen ability, why didn't they just kill me while I was trapped?
Is there a specific reason they cannot kill me?
What other use could they possibly have for keeping me alive? If they wanted to exploit my Nen ability, why did they just let me go in the middle of nowhere?
Do they genuinely not want to kill me? Or did the other members of the Troupe negotiate to spare my life?
Does the enemy actually want me to survive so I can convey these exact thoughts and speculations back to the rest of the Troupe?
Surrounded by the vast, darkening wasteland, Pakunoda drifted further away, entirely alone with her racing thoughts.
High above, Jade phased back through the floor of the airship cabin. The entity instantly dissolved into a thick puff of smoke and flowed seamlessly back into Liam's body.
Liam clapped his hands together, brushing off invisible dust, and looked over at Machi. "The hostage has been safely released. Please do not kill me."
"You could have waited until I woke up, allowed me to use The Abyss on her, and then released her..."
The voice came from the floor. Kurapika, who was still lying flat on his back, had suddenly spoken. His tone was incredibly hoarse, his breath weak and strained.
"Save your eyesight," Liam replied, glancing down at him. "If you go completely blind, you do not have any brothers around to swap eyes with." It was a cold, obscure joke that absolutely no one in the room could understand. Liam didn't bother explaining it. Instead, he asked, "How long did you keep them active this time? One hour?"
Kurapika slowly opened his heavy eyelids. The very first thing his blurred vision focused on was the feathery rear end of a gray bird. To be precise, a tail practically resting on his nose. He lay there, completely speechless for a long moment.
Finally, he sighed. "Back and forth, it was about two hours and fifteen minutes."
"About?" Liam raised an eyebrow. "In your specific situation, you really cannot afford to be imprecise."
One second of activation burned one hour of his life. That meant one minute of use resulted in a terrifying error margin of two and a half days of lost lifespan.
Two hours and fifteen minutes. A total of 8,100 seconds.
He had just burned 8,100 hours of his own life.
Kurapika's lifespan: -5 days.
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