When Owl woke up, he found himself tied to a chair in a hotel room.
In front of him was a pink-haired girl, scanning him with the picky gaze of someone inspecting merchandise.
It looked like she might carve out his kidney at any moment, sending a chill through Owl's bones.
"He's awake," Neon called toward the doorway.
Ronin and Kurapika pushed the door open and walked in together. Ronin was holding a sandwich, and Kurapika's chains were still floating around him.
Until Kurapika either returned Owl's ability—or passed it to someone else—he wouldn't be able to put away the Index Finger's Steal Chain.
The reason Ronin and Kurapika had been outside earlier was because they were discussing what to do with Owl.
Owl's ability was excellent, but Kurapika's own ability didn't allow him to hold Owl's ability long-term.
So if they wanted to use Owl, they had only two options: make him willingly cooperate, or force him to cooperate.
Of course, Ronin had proposed a third way—but Kurapika thought it was too cruel. It made them look like villains, so unless it became necessary, he didn't want Ronin using that method.
Owl didn't know what Kurapika was thinking, but he could read something like pity in Kurapika's eyes.
Ronin's thinking was simple.
He didn't trust Owl.
So unless he obtained the Rinnegan and could turn Owl into a "Pain," the best method he could think of was to learn from Sasori of the Red Sand and use puppet control on Owl.
After fusing the fifth pair of Scarlet Eyes, Ronin could practically call himself an "otherworldly ninjutsu professor."
S-rank was the highest difficulty tier.
A Ronin who could cast S-rank ninjutsu had mastered most techniques.
Aside from non-Sharingan bloodline limits, summoning jutsu, techniques requiring bodily modification, forbidden arts, and techniques requiring special external components, he could cast almost everything else.
Even for techniques that required objects, he could prepare in advance and meet the conditions.
Unfortunately, that did not include true "human puppet" creation.
Because turning humans into puppets was Sasori's unique genius. In the entire ninja world, Sasori was essentially the only one who could do it.
So Ronin settled for the next best thing: the puppet-style technique Sasori used in the Fourth Ninja War when he had no puppets—controlling living ninja as puppets:
Puppet Performance: Human Puppet Technique.
That way, he wouldn't need Owl's consent at all—he could turn Owl into a marionette on his strings.
This kind of control even reminded Ronin of Neferpitou.
If Pitou did it, they could probably turn Owl into a human puppet that still retained part of its Nen—making it even easier to use.
Ronin also thought about how to carry and "use" Owl:
Use Owl's own ability to wrap Owl inside the big bundle cloth and carry him around.
He could even leave food inside the bundle like feeding a pet, keeping Owl alive—then unfold the cloth whenever he needed Owl.
In Ronin's view, it was a perfect plan.
The only issue was that it was, in spirit, not far from what Kurapika feared—too villainous.
And it treated Owl far too little like a person.
But did Ronin really need to treat a mafia underling like a person?
Ronin had no love for the mafia. If Kurapika's approach failed, Owl would ultimately become Ronin's "puppet toy."
He could even use Owl to test many jutsu he'd wanted to experiment with—sealing techniques, curse marks, things like the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal, the Caged Bird Seal, even Orochimaru's curse seal…
Though whether Orochimaru's curse seal would work, Ronin had doubts, because—
In just that short span, Ronin's mind had already spun up countless ideas.
Meanwhile, Kurapika began questioning Owl.
"Do you know where the Ten Dons are?" Kurapika asked directly.
At the same time, the chain on Kurapika's ring finger dropped into view.
Owl had a guess about what Kurapika was doing, but he still gambled and answered, "I don't know."
Kurapika answered with a heavy punch to Owl's abdomen.
"Wow," Neon whispered, surprised.
She hadn't expected the usually refined-looking Kurapika to show this kind of ruthless side during interrogation.
"You'd better tell the truth and cooperate," Kurapika warned. "Otherwise what awaits you may be worse than death."
Behind him came Ronin's soft cough.
A reminder.
Owl smiled faintly. "Is that all you've got?"
Cocky bastard.
Ronin's lips curled slightly. He knew that in the manga, Owl was interrogated too—but not by the relatively "gentle" Kurapika.
By Feitan.
Under Feitan's interrogation, Owl spilled everything—whether he knew it or not.
As for whether Owl lived or died afterward…
After Yorknew, Chrollo never used Owl's ability again, so Owl's fate was basically Schrödinger's status.
But at least judging from Feitan's results, Owl wasn't as tough as he pretended to be.
Still, Ronin didn't intend to "help" Kurapika with hints. He simply watched Kurapika struggle.
If Kurapika couldn't get anything useful, Ronin would step in.
Memory Reading Technique.
A jutsu that could read thoughts without any device.
In Naruto, Yamanaka Inoichi used it and successfully pulled crucial intel from an enemy's mind. Yamashiro Aoba also used it, though he failed against Kisame.
Either way, a technique that could directly read memories was terrifyingly powerful.
It was essentially the same kind of power as Pakunoda's memory-reading ability in the Phantom Troupe.
The interrogation dragged on for over an hour, but Kurapika extracted very little.
In the end, Ronin personally took over.
After forming seals, he placed one hand on Owl's forehead, and the other on his own.
In the next instant, everything before Ronin's eyes changed—he began flipping through Owl's memories from a godlike perspective.
He saw the Shadow Beasts' assembly—many Shadow Beast members he had never met.
Then the memory rewound further: Owl meeting a scar-faced man in a hotel.
The man's name was Raymond—one of the Ten Dons who had summoned the Shadow Beasts.
Owl's direct boss.
The memory continued rewinding. The hotel's name appeared in Ronin's mind.
The floor, the room number, the number of mafia guards along the route—everything surfaced clearly, and Ronin captured it all.
Ronin opened his eyes again. Sweat beaded lightly on his forehead, but the chakra drain wasn't as heavy as he'd expected.
"Let's go. Adan Hotel, Room 1801," Ronin said.
As he spoke, chakra turned into threads in his hand and pierced into Owl's body.
In that instant, true terror finally appeared in Owl's eyes.
~~~
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