Chapter 101: Gratitude from Killua
April 10th, 2000. This time Ross had come to the Sky Arena alone.
Yusuke and Kuwabara had both originally wanted to return after so long to test what two months of training had produced. After all, the City of the Four Saint Beasts had been a genuine life-or-death fight.
But when they heard Hisoka was involved, two impulses surfaced simultaneously and fought each other: the draw of observing a high-level Nen user fight (which combat-oriented Nen users genuinely valued) and pure physiological disgust. The conflict made them both quite uncomfortable.
Ross saw their hesitation, decided not to push it, and booked his own airship ticket.
A Hunter's license really was useful. First class, no waiting.
Kurama had his own business to attend to. So Ross ended up enjoying the rare pleasure of solo travel for the first time in a while.
Three days on an airship made him increasingly eager to knock out the other two Secret Realm routes and get more fast travel points set up.
The Castlevania III entrance was already done. With Genkai's approval, he had placed it in the backyard of the Spirit Wave Style dojo.
It had to be said that Granny's reputation as a devoted gamer was not exaggerated. Before Ross had even become her disciple, Genkai was already an enthusiast who poured over half of her free time into electronic games.
Old people needed to stay occupied.
It took her roughly three hours, starting from total unfamiliarity, to earn an S-rank in Castlevania III's Entertainment Mode and the visitor access to the corresponding Secret Realm.
At this point Genkai had long since stopped trying to interpret Ross's unusual abilities through the conventional Nen framework. Even so, when she watched him set up a genuine Secret Realm entrance out of nowhere, she couldn't entirely suppress some nagging uncertainty.
Abilities that thoroughly exceeded the boundaries of the normal human Nen system were, in certain knowledgeable circles, typically assumed to originate from a specific place. But over two months of training together, Genkai had not observed any of that particular place's characteristics in Ross.
At least, not until she personally entered the Secret Realm after he had left.
The airship landed. Ross wandered around the Sky Arena at a leisurely pace.
As expected, the large screens were running heavy promotion for tomorrow's floor-200 match.
The two headliners were Hisoka and Kastro. Their records were displayed on screen for all to see.
"Eight wins and three losses! But every loss was a voluntary no-show. The death magician who loves rest: Hisoka!"
"Nine wins and one loss! Nine consecutive wins since his defeat to Hisoka. The fighter closest to Floor Master status: martial artist Kastro!"
"What kind of sparks will fly between these two! Stay tuned!"
As the screens looped the advertisements on repeat, the ticket booth had been seeing queues for days, with scalpers operating all through the crowd. Both Hisoka and Kastro were popular floor-200 fighters, and this was also Kastro's revenge match, which added extra pull. The bloodthirsty audience crowd was not going to miss this one.
Ross, who had a deep aversion to queuing, had used his floor-200 fighter privileges to skip the line days ago. One hundred and fifty thousand Jenny per ticket.
If he flipped them, two hundred and fifty thousand, maybe three hundred thousand, would probably find buyers. For a lot of the bloodthirsty audience, there was simply no comparison between watching in person and watching on a screen.
For Nen users, in-person observation carried genuine value. Most non-Conjuration Nen abilities couldn't be captured by ordinary recording equipment at all. Only certain specific ability users could, by applying Nen enhancement to the recording method, actually capture Nen phenomena on film.
The value of being physically present didn't need explaining further.
Hearing about something was one thing. Knowing about it was one thing. Seeing it happen in front of you was something else entirely.
There was still a full day before the match. Should he spend the time gaming, gaming, or gaming?
Ross summoned the Navigation Arrow. It was still pointing at the upper floors of the tower.
Ding.
The elevator doors opened, and a familiar white-haired figure appeared in his field of view.
"Ah! Ross!"
The white-haired kid, Killua, looked genuinely startled.
"Hey there. You're here at the arena earning money too?"
Ross had no intention of getting on the elevator now. He stood where he was and watched the kid bounce out toward him.
Looking at him, he had clearly recovered from the self-recriminating state. Gon's influence, presumably.
Ross genuinely didn't care for Gon's personality. But for someone like Killua, born and raised in that particular kind of darkness, Gon was unquestionably a ray of light capable of cutting through it entirely, the kind that could melt a heart frozen over for more than a decade.
What Ross hadn't expected was that Killua's attitude would be warmer than he had anticipated.
Killua grabbed him without hesitation and insisted on treating him to a meal, which left Ross feeling oddly off-balance.
"What's going on with you? If you're short on money, I can help. For the right price."
Ross's hand moved instinctively toward his wallet. He watched Killua with a very guarded expression.
By his rough calculations, Killua had earned around 400 million Jenny at the start of March. But the Zoldyck family upbringing had left this kid with a thoroughly numbed relationship with money, and he spent it with absolutely no restraint.
Ross would lend money to basically anyone before he would lend it to Killua.
Seeing the guarded-like-watching-a-suspect expression, Killua laughed awkwardly, then fidgeted for a moment before saying something that genuinely surprised Ross.
"Thank you, Ross."
His face went red as he said it. He was clearly not comfortable with this level of formal gratitude himself.
"Thank me? For what?"
Ross looked completely confused.
"For saving Bodoro."
After a couple of measured breaths, Killua finally raised his eyes and looked directly at Ross.
During the final exam phase, pushed past his limit by his older brother's relentless psychological pressure, Killua had lost his reason and driven his modified fingernails into Bodoro's chest, then walked away without conceding. Back home, once his head had cleared, even Killua, whose hands had been soaked in blood across far too many victims, found himself with some genuine regret.
Killua's heart was, underneath everything, quite kind. It was just that his upbringing had pressed him to accept that he was a killer by nature and that nothing beyond family mattered.
When Gon and the others arrived and Killua learned from them that Bodoro had actually been saved, the weight sitting in his chest was suddenly gone.
He still owed the victim himself. But his mood lightened considerably regardless.
This kid was kind by nature, though he had still been thoroughly twisted in values and personality by his family, and a month or two with Gon wasn't going to reverse all of that. So his guilt toward Bodoro specifically was limited. The gratitude toward Ross, who had broken through a particular mental block, ran deeper.
It was probably also partly because he barely knew Bodoro and knew Ross considerably better. Children's thought processes could be genuinely hard to predict.
Having sorted through the rough reasoning in his head, Ross didn't say much. He just put a hand on top of Killua's head and gave his white hair a thorough, messy ruffle.
But right at that moment, the corner of Ross's eye caught a figure moving through the crowd.
A pale purple-pink short jacket. Blue-violet hair in a high ponytail. A small drawstring bundle over one shoulder. The whole person radiating an unmistakable keep-your-distance coldness.
Phantom Troupe. Machi.