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Enhancement battles were pure numbers to Ronin.
When the stats gap was this wide, technique didn't matter. Stronger body, higher output, bigger reserves—that was it. You were simply stronger and lasted longer.
The guard's choice wasn't wrong, but he missed the one fatal detail: Ronin's aura completely crushed his. That was why Ronin had stepped right into his face without a single care.
No holding back. When the man dropped to one knee in pain, Ronin drove his foot straight into his chest and caved the entire ribcage inward. Then he tossed the body aside like trash.
The whole exchange took less than a second.
The giant shield whistled past the second black-suited guard's head and slammed into the floor with a heavy thud. For one frozen heartbeat the entire theater went dead silent.
Abachi opened her eyes. With a flick of her wrist the hook she'd sent into empty space reappeared in a ripple of air, a rocket launcher dangling from the line.
She had no idea what was happening around her—she'd been locked in her fishing trance the whole time. Norman, however, had seen everything. The shield had grazed the guard's scalp and flown right past him.
Whoever threw it was clearly on their side.
Maybe the situation had changed. If they coordinated with this newcomer, they might actually get everyone out alive.
Abachi yanked the line. The rocket launcher snapped into her hands. She shouldered it, aimed dead at the sealed theater doors, and fired.
The blast was deafening. Guards were hurled backward. The heavy doors shattered, revealing the hallway beyond and a handful of audience members who hadn't left yet.
"Move!" Abachi shouted.
This was the troupe's last card. They'd fought too hard and too long to let the Grasse family turn them into trophies. Every performer had kept one hidden ace. Abachi's was the rocket launcher.
If Norman escaped, the freak-show troupe would survive.
Then gunfire erupted in the hallway.
Audience members who hadn't cleared out screamed and dropped. Black-suited gunmen poured in, spraying bullets with zero restraint.
The slaughter lasted only seconds.
Two figures blurred into the corridor—Neon and Shizuku. Black-suited bodies crumpled one after another as the two women tore through them.
Ronin had already seen the gunmen appear. He flashed the Shadow Clone seal. One clone stayed in the theater; the real Ronin was already sprinting for the exit.
Ryan wasn't inside. That meant he was hiding somewhere outside.
The remaining black-suited men watched Ronin split into two and felt a fresh spike of fear. A Conjurer who could create perfect clones and still overpower an Enhancer in close combat had to be operating on another level entirely.
They adjusted fast.
The fake Ryan who'd been spreading that corrosive mark suddenly exploded into fragments. The erosion in the air vanished with him. Every black-suited guard charged Ronin at once.
To Ronin they looked full of holes.
Only one of them was a real ability user. The rest were ordinary men. The user had tried to mask them with aura, but the Sharingan saw straight through it. The real Nen felt alive. The fakes felt dead.
Ronin exploded forward.
From the way Abachi's hook had affected the first guard, Ronin knew the ability needed physical contact to trigger. But if he hit the user directly? The Shadow Clone could tank the backlash. The real body was already gone.
The lone ability user felt Ronin's clone vanish from sight and knew something was wrong. He stopped dead, every sense screaming.
Too late.
The clone reappeared right in front of him. No aura—just pure chakra shaped into a piercing blade. Chidori slammed straight through the man's chest.
The body dropped without a sound.