The ship had exploded out at sea.
Of everyone, the butler was the calmest about the outcome. In fact, he looked like he had already guessed something.
Ronin still had the chakra and memory feedback transmitted back from his shadow clone. Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu really was a god-tier technique. Even when a clone was destroyed from that far away, it could still return energy and memories. It was probably some kind of space-time mechanism at work too.
That departing ship hadn't carried only Ronin's shadow clone—it had also carried a batch of people who had left Meteor City full of hope for the future.
It could be said that some of the extremists in Meteor City had engraved that line into their bones:
"We reject nothing, but don't ever think you can take anything from us."
They didn't care what they had to sacrifice for it.
Madmen.
That was Ronin's judgment of those extremist Meteor City types.
Milia's people would arrive in Meteor City on September 24. After that, with the butler's help, they would temporarily manage the situation here in place of Ronin and Kurapika.
As for what it would all turn into in the end, Ronin honestly didn't care that much.
The whole "Infinity Castle" idea had just been a passing thought. He had never really planned it out in detail.
What did surprise Ronin, however, was that in the middle of the night, someone broke into the villa and found the "Ryan" his shadow clone was impersonating.
The fight broke out instantly.
A thin needle shot toward the shadow clone on the bed, but the blanket suddenly rose up and blocked it.
That brief blockage was enough for the clone to flip up from the bed and counterattack.
The intruder was Illumi.
When he saw his needle blocked, a trace of confusion flashed through his catlike almond eyes.
Good vigilance.
That was Illumi's first judgment.
But the next second, countless Spheres of wind-nature chakra shot toward him like a machine gun.
It was Wind Style: Vacuum Spheres.
Like Phoenix Sage Fire, it was an attack launched by expelling breath.
The difference was that Vacuum Spheres, infused with wind chakra, traveled even faster.
And by spitting short bursts continuously, it could become something like a machine gun barrage.
But the shadow clone saw clearly that the figure riddled full of holes by the Vacuum Spheres wasn't the real body at all—it was just an afterimage.
Which meant that by the time the attack was launched, the assassin had already shifted positions.
Among the assassins who had come in the last two nights, this one was definitely among the more troublesome.
Thinking that, chirping lightning appeared in the shadow clone's hand, and the room was instantly lit up, exposing the attacker's position.
The enemy had actually used the moment the clone stopped its breath attack and switched methods to close the distance. His fingers were pressed together, veins bulging, the hand looking almost inhuman.
And that hand was already stabbing toward the clone's back.
But Chidori had also been completed in that instant, and as the clone turned, the lightning blade swept toward the attacker's waist.
That kind of mutual-kill fighting style was the type Illumi hated most.
The thrusting arm changed course, turning into an elbow slash aimed at the clone's arm, while the other hand had already produced several silver needles and shot them toward several of the clone's acupoints.
The one in front of him was not Ryan.
Illumi had judged that the moment the clone used Chidori.
If the opponent's "Nen Spheres" could still be lumped into Emission, then turning Nen into lightning was clearly Transmutation.
If someone could bring both of those systems to a highly developed level, then the only explanation would be a Specialist genius.
But according to the intelligence he had, Ryan's strongest likely category was Manipulation.
So who, then, was the one standing in front of him with Ryan's exact face?
The answer wasn't hard to guess.
Ronin.
Which meant that the one on the exploded ship had probably only been a disguised Ronin, while the real Ronin had never left Meteor City at all.
Then was the one before him the real Ronin?
No.
Illumi reached that conclusion quickly. This kind of life-for-life fighting style didn't feel like a normal person.
His sharpened hand chopped into the other's elbow, deflecting the lightning in the clone's hand, but the needles he had fired were blocked by a kunai the clone pulled with its other hand.
Even as a shadow clone, it still had the Sharingan's insight.
Every one of Illumi's movements was laid bare under the clone's gaze.
But even so, at this range, the shadow clone could still feel how troublesome he was.
At the same time, close contact let the clone identify him.
Illumi Zoldyck.
An assassin.
So who had hired him?
The answer was obvious.
The most fitting candidate was Chrollo.
Still, it surprised Ronin a little that the Zoldycks would take a contract to assassinate him—after all, on the other side, Silva and Zeno had also accepted Kurapika's job to kill Troupe members.
Truly the Zoldycks—eating from both sides. Weren't they afraid one side would choke them?
Thinking that, Ronin's shadow clone retreated slightly to open some distance, while its hands rapidly formed seals in front of its chest.
As for the elbow Illumi had struck, it wasn't a problem.
As an Enhancer, even as just a shadow clone, the clone's active aura output wasn't very different from the real body's.
So to block Illumi's attacks, all it had to do was gather more aura at the elbow.
Ronin's mastery of advanced Ryu was already at the point of perfection.
Still, he could tell that Illumi's attacks were pure assassination technique, not true Nen-based fighting.
Those flying needles were the real danger.
Lightning began to spread across the clone's body as Lightning Release Body Armor was activated once more.
The moment Ronin retreated, Illumi had already prepared for mid- to long-range attacks, but what he wanted more than anything was to get away from this clone.
Even if he killed it, it wouldn't do much damage to the real Ronin.
So rather than get tied down here, it would be better to find the real body and complete the assassination.
But when Ronin's hair began to take on that lightning-like shape, Illumi knew shaking off this clone wouldn't be easy.
And if he got pinned here, then once Ronin's real body arrived, it would become a two-on-one.
No.
Everything in his earlier investigation had been based on the assumption that Ronin had already left and the person in the villa was truly Ryan.
Now that "Ryan" was fake, then the real Ronin was naturally supposed to be somewhere nearby.