Abaki was a performer who joined the Freak Show Troupe after the Moritonio Troupe disbanded.
But there was nothing physically disabled or deformed about her.
The only reason the Freak Show Troupe was willing to take her in was because its leader had once been very close to Moritonio, and he also knew that Abaki was a Nen user.
And in a troupe, Nen users could always put on astonishing performances. They were cash cows.
Abaki was especially skilled with a fishing rod. She could even use it to fish up anything she wanted.
That miraculous act was one of the troupe's most talked-about performances, second only to the ringmaster's own show.
The last time Abaki had come to perform for the Glam royals with the Moritonio Troupe was back when neither Moritonio nor Hisoka had disappeared.
But it was also after that performance that her world changed. The troupe fell apart, and the people she cherished most all vanished.
So when Ryan Glam sent this invitation, she couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.
Standing on the rooftop and looking up at the stars scattered across the sky, she slowly pulled a crumpled promotional poster from her pocket.
And the person on it was someone she knew well—that red-haired boy.
No, he should be called a young man now.
The magician, Hisoka.
So he wasn't dead after all. That was such a relief.
Abaki hesitated. She wanted to go find Hisoka and ask him where Moritonio had gone, but at the same time, she was afraid her old suspicions might turn out to be true.
Was she really ready to accept everything?
She stuffed the poster away again, crumpling it back into the same wrinkled ball and shoving it into her pocket—just like the tangled mess of emotions she was feeling now.
With a sigh, she turned and left the rooftop.
What she didn't notice was that someone had already set their sights on her from the shadows.
Kurapika hadn't found a way to contact Ryan Glam Gas ahead of time, but he had managed to get tickets to the Freak Show performance.
The show was being hosted by Royal Glam Gas, and many important figures would be attending. As the organizer, Ryan Glam Gas himself would naturally be there as well.
So in Kurapika's eyes, this was a good chance to make contact with Ryan.
As for investigating Ryan Glam Gas himself, there had been almost no progress at all.
In Glam Gas Land, the Glam Gas family were the true emperors. Everything related to them was kept under the highest level of secrecy.
But even that revealed something. After all, the Glam Gas family controlled both the underworld and the legitimate side of the city. Their methods were just a little more polished than those of a pure criminal syndicate.
Still, under those circumstances, it was hard to say whether the Glam Gas family were black or white.
Maybe gray was the best description.
And that made things troublesome.
At least for Kurapika.
For Ronin, though, once he used the ninjutsu Mind-Reading Technique to explore the memories of one of the Glam Gas family's bodyguards, he learned quite a few hidden truths.
The members of the Glam Gas family were absolutely not good people.
In his view, maybe they didn't all deserve death, but they certainly didn't inspire any sympathy either.
So to Ronin, what came next was simple. If Ryan refused to hand over the Scarlet Eyes, then he didn't mind taking them by force. The only real question was whether Ryan would willingly reveal where the Scarlet Eyes were, or whether Ronin would have to pull that information straight out of his head.
"It looks like Nen users aren't nearly as rare as we imagined," Kurapika said as he thought through their strategy.
During their investigation of the Glam Gas family, the number of Nen users involved was what concerned him the most.
The bodyguard Ronin had captured was one of them.
Ronin hadn't killed him, though. He had only knocked him out and searched his mind.
That might make them more cautious, but it wouldn't go so far as to alert the enemy too badly.
"Each of the five great nations probably has its own system for training Nen users. Kakin, for example, has teams made up entirely of Nen users," Ronin said, thinking of the squad formed under Kakin's First Prince, Benjamin.
Every one of those dozen or so men was a Nen user.
And that was only one squad under Benjamin's command. So how many such teams might exist in Kakin as a whole?
There was no way to know.
But at the very least, Kakin showed one thing clearly: Nen had only been cut off from spreading among the lower classes. Among the upper classes, it had always been treated as a weapon.
The Glam Gas family had a long history. The fact that they had completely taken over Glam Gas Land after discovering natural gas was proof enough that they were far from ordinary.
So it was only natural that they had cultivated a number of Nen users internally to serve as bodyguards for family members.
And from that, it could also be inferred that Ryan himself was probably a Nen user.
As for what kind of ability he had developed, that could only be judged once they met him.
"Looking at it this way, I may have underestimated Kakin," Kurapika thought to himself, quietly raising the country's danger level in his mind.
"But the number of Nen users who truly qualify as top-tier fighters is still pretty small," Ronin added. "The ones you really need to watch out for are the special types—especially Manipulators and Conjurers.
"Their abilities tend to come with rule-based effects. If they manage to fulfill the conditions needed to restrain you without you realizing it, you can get dragged into their pace and the fight can end in ways you never expected."
That was one of the most dangerous parts of Nen battles.
No matter how strong a Nen user was, once their opponent had enough information on them, there was always the chance things could go badly. And combinations of different abilities could create surprising changes too, leading to effects no one had anticipated.
Just like during the Chimera Ant extermination, when Morel teamed up with Knuckle and Meleoron to trap an enemy and kill them through ability mechanics.
Among the Phantom Troupe, the only abilities Ronin truly needed to be wary of were the unknown powers within Chrollo's Skill Hunter, and Shalnark's ability, which could take control of a target as soon as he managed to stick an antenna into them.
As for everyone else, even Pakunoda and a badly wounded Feitan wouldn't pose much of a threat to Ronin.
"Yeah, I understand," Kurapika said, nodding in agreement.
The Freak Show performance started at eight in the evening and ran until eleven, so at seven, the four of them left the hotel and headed to the Royal Glam Gas Theater.
The theater was inside Glam Gas Land's largest hotel, though only the smaller venue, which could hold over a thousand people, had been opened.
Following the crowd inside, they could already see a clown in heavy makeup riding a unicycle on the center stage.
The atmosphere was lively, but Ronin and the others were more focused on a middle-aged man sitting in the VIP section—a man with short brown hair, a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and a rough, gangster-like air about him.
And that man, staring at the stage with obvious anticipation in his eyes, was Ryan Glam Gas.