Maha had reattached his hand, but he still looked pretty battered. No one had expected Ronin to suddenly unleash something that big inside the room.
Even with his old bones, that burst of power had felt dangerous.
"What a loss," Maha muttered, stuffing both hands into his coat pockets. In this job, he'd come along as support, yet he'd ended up becoming the main attacker, while Illumi—the supposed main force—had barely contributed at all.
"Yeah. I didn't expect him to have teleportation prepared in advance either. Looks like he really did see this coming," Illumi said. He wasn't especially disappointed by the result.
"If you run into him alone, you might not come out ahead," Maha said seriously.
He thought highly of Illumi and didn't want him dying on a job like this.
Still, taking on a mission beyond his level was a good lesson for him.
At the end of the day, the key was still going to be Silva and Zeno. If they could deal with that nuisance Chrollo, then this whole matter would solve itself.
"You're not going to try again?" Illumi asked.
"This old body of mine isn't built for that kind of abuse," Maha said flatly, refusing.
What a joke. Ronin had very clearly held back earlier. Otherwise, that arm of his that got taken wouldn't have survived.
Since the kid had already shown some restraint, chasing after him again would just make Maha look tactless.
"Then this mission will have to be shelved for now," Illumi said, sounding faintly regretful. He still had a few ways to make things troublesome for Ronin, but after these two failed assassination attempts, even he had realized that killing Ronin wouldn't be easy.
That defensive technique of his—the one that had required Maha going all out just to crack—was the biggest problem.
If he couldn't break through that defense, then a successful assassination was basically impossible.
And even if he could break it, actually injuring Ronin's real body would still be difficult. Ronin's training as an Enhancer was clearly exceptional.
By this point, Illumi was sure of one thing: Ronin was definitely a Specialist.
It was just that unlike most Specialists, who leaned toward Conjuration or Manipulation and used more supportive abilities, Ronin was clearly tilted toward the combat-heavy upper three types—Enhancement, Emission, and Transmutation.
He could even bring all three of them to near-perfect output.
That was probably the effect of those strange eyes of his.
Interesting.
Illumi narrowed his eyes. Even if someone else killed Chrollo and technically preserved his perfect assassination record, Illumi still wanted to complete the job himself.
It was several hours later when Hisoka arrived at the estate.
With Ronin's Mystical Palm treatment, Hisoka's injuries had recovered quickly, though that only made Ronin's overall powers even harder for him to read.
Ronin seemed able to do a little of everything.
Still, from what Hisoka had seen—at least without knowing about Ronin's puppet-control use on Owl—Ronin's abilities were still overwhelmingly weighted toward the upper three categories.
And if you really broke it down, Ronin's skill in Manipulation and Conjuration wasn't actually that high.
Most ninjutsu could basically be sorted under Transmutation, especially the five elemental nature transformations.
And his puppet technique itself wasn't especially advanced, since he could only control one Owl and didn't yet have any true puppet of his own.
"What are you planning to do next?" Ronin asked after finishing the treatment.
"Go find Chrollo," Hisoka replied.
He loved the thrill of fighting. Since he couldn't beat Ronin for now, he'd go look for a different kind of fun.
And Chrollo had always been one of his premium fruits.
On top of that, Chrollo knew a lot of hidden things. Hisoka wanted to see whether he could pry out any useful information from him—especially information that might help him grow stronger.
Surely Chrollo had learned something while investigating Ronin.
Ronin nodded. If Hisoka started clinging to Chrollo the way he did to prey, then Chrollo wouldn't get a moment of peace.
"You'd better hurry. I have a feeling Chrollo won't be alive much longer," Ronin said meaningfully.
"I'm not giving you his location," Hisoka replied at once, as if he'd seen straight through him.
"No need," Ronin said. "As long as I keep moving at my own pace, sooner or later Chrollo will be the one getting desperate. And when that happens, even if he doesn't have absolute confidence in beating me, he'll still come to me."
He truly didn't believe Chrollo could keep coldly hunting for a perfect countermeasure after every familiar companion in Meteor City had died one by one.
"Then let's make it a race," Hisoka said with an easy smile. "If my fight with Chrollo falls through, then I'll fight you again."
"Depends on how strong you are by then. If you're still at this level, you can go fight Kurapika instead," Ronin said, casually tossing Kurapika forward as the next option.
Hisoka's gaze shifted to Kurapika.
In this room, aside from Ronin and Neon, both Kurapika and Shizuku were giving him a fair amount of interest.
Especially Kurapika.
He came from the Kurta Clan just like Ronin. Did that mean he also had the same absurd growth rate and unpredictable range of abilities?
But judging from the chains on his hands, he was probably a Conjurer.
That likely meant quite a few different abilities.
Which was… appealing in its own way.
"Don't look at me. I'm not interested in fighting you," Shizuku said the moment Hisoka's eyes slid her way.
Hisoka looked away with visible boredom, though the look in his eyes made it obvious he hadn't given up.
Whether someone else was interested or not had never mattered to Hisoka. The only thing he cared about was whether fighting them would make him feel good.
Right now, Shizuku wasn't as tempting as Kurapika.
But if he went after Kurapika and Shizuku got in the way, he wouldn't mind fighting her first.
Though he doubted he could actually kill either of them. Ronin definitely wouldn't stand by and let him do whatever he wanted.
Still, if killing the two of them could enrage Ronin, what kind of ability would that bring out?
That thought alone was intoxicating.
"You'd better not start getting suicidal ideas," Ronin said. Just from Hisoka's expression, he could more or less guess what kind of filth the man was thinking about.
Hisoka really wasn't afraid of dying.
He rolled his healed arm once. Ronin's Mystical Palm hadn't restored him to perfect condition, and Ronin had already said he'd still need a bit of time to fully recover.
"Alright, I'm leaving. I'm looking forward to our next meeting—I hope we can both surprise each other," Hisoka said, though his eyes lingered mostly on Ronin.
He admitted he'd lost, but the frustration still lingered in his heart.
~~~
Patreon(.)com/Bleam
— Currently You can Read 70 Chapters Ahead of Others!