The Shadow Clone held back on Nen. That was Ronin's final insurance policy.
He wasn't scared he couldn't kill the guy. He was scared the bastard might drop dead and his Nen would flip into post-mortem Nen and bite him in the ass.
Even if the odds were slim, he wasn't taking chances.
The last thought in the hidden ability user's head was pure shock.
Thud.
The body hit the floor. Blood spread in a dark pool. No post-mortem Nen flared—just the fading aura on the black-suited men nearby, proof Ronin had ended it clean and fast.
That's what an Enhancer does to everyone else.
Lock onto the real body, finish the job quick, and you never have to find out what nasty surprise their ability was hiding.
Ronin didn't waste time on the regular black-suited goons.
He didn't think they stood a chance against the freak-show troupe anyway.
Those performers had been through hell long enough to turn into real fighters.
At least against normal people and bodyguards, they had the upper hand. Some of their freakish traits even turned fights in ways nobody saw coming.
The theater fight ended stupidly fast. The few ability users still inside stared at Ronin's Shadow Clone with fresh fear in their eyes.
Getting wrecked in a straight brawl proved the intruder was on another level. Losing their hidden buddy in seconds during the ambush sealed it. Twice was more than enough to show they weren't dealing with someone they could afford to piss off.
So the remaining ability users made the smart play—they ignored Ronin's clone and started pulling back.
Saving strength for when it mattered was one of the perks of being a Grasse family Nen user.
With the real fighters retreating, the ordinary black-suited guards got left holding the bag.
Gunfire became the only sound in the theater.
But the second Norman the centaur and Abachi with her rocket launcher started pushing back, the whole thing flipped.
The freak-show troupe took control. Ronin's clone didn't even need to move.
The fight didn't last long.
As the ability users fell back, the center of the battle shifted too.
By now even an idiot could see the guy who popped into the theater out of nowhere was gunning straight for Ryan Grasse.
The retreating ability users didn't chase Ronin. They didn't stray far from the theater either.
They were clearly worried their movements would give away Ryan's hiding spot.
Out in the hallway, besides the audience members caught in the opening crossfire, it was all dead black-suited bodies.
Ronin had vanished, but Shizuku and Neon stayed behind.
They stood facing off against the ability users who'd made it out.
Kurapika had been watching Ryan through the crystal ball the whole time and figured the man had to still be inside the theater.
Eyes don't lie.
But after Abachi launched her attack, Ryan turned out to be a dummy.
That left a few possibilities.
One: the Ryan watching the show was real, but he got swapped the second the performance ended.
Ryan's follow-up words didn't support that. Too much like the real Ryan. Not an act.
Two: someone had tampered with Ryan ahead of time. The moment Abachi attacked, the real Ryan was already gone.
But that raised another question—did Abachi's attack only hit the Ryan she could see, or did it lock onto her first target no matter where he went?
The key was Abachi's ability had spatial properties.
Once she locked onto Ryan, no matter where he teleported, her attack would follow.
Except the dummy took the hit, and the real Ryan was nowhere.
That left a third possibility.
The teleport was Ryan's own ability.
But before he triggered it, someone had already set him up.
The whole sequence: Ryan finishes talking, triggers the teleport, leaves a dummy behind. The dummy inherits Ryan's current state. Abachi's attack lands. The dummy's ability activates and starts the corrosion.
Bottom line: Ryan's ability was instant teleport with a dummy left at the origin point.
More accurately, it was a counter-type Nen. It judged and triggered the second he got attacked.
Effect: on attack, create a dummy to tank the hit while the real body teleports away.
And judging from how the dummy triggered the corrosion tracking after getting hit, the dummy probably inherited some of the real Ryan's active states too.
Now the two big questions were how many times Ryan could trigger the ability and how far he could teleport.
Abilities like this usually had two flavors—random teleport or fixed points.
Kurapika leaned toward fixed points.
It explained why Ryan had locked down the entire theater. If it was random, he risked getting dumped somewhere dangerous.
Too much risk.
And to cut the risk, you had to weaken the effect.
The teleport distance couldn't be far. And it had to be somewhere he could still keep eyes on the theater.
The closest spot? The monitoring room.
Kurapika had already mapped out the hotel's layout on the way in.
So he headed straight there.
Ronin stepped out of the theater and immediately noticed Kurapika was gone. He activated the Far Eye Technique right away.
Once he locked onto Kurapika's position, Ronin exploded into motion and vanished down the corridor.
Ryan was indeed in the monitoring room right now.
His face looked like thunder. The screen showed Ronin's Shadow Clone suppressing the black-suited men, flipping the fight, and completely wrecking his plans.
He had no clue who this random intruder was, but he knew the guy was coming for him.
Ryan stood up from the couch and strode toward the door.
He couldn't stay here. The intruder's power was insane. If they found this room, even his ability might not save him from getting cornered in the hotel.
After all, he'd only set up five teleport points.
Those five spots were five guests staying in the hotel. Once his ability triggered, those guests—people he'd already marked and controlled—would die to become his dummies.
Right now there was a corpse lying in the monitoring room. The arm had a torn wound exactly where Abachi's hook had hit the dummy.
The body had also shrunk a bit—that was from the corrosion mark draining its blood.
But when Ryan yanked the door open, he didn't expect the chain that rose silently from the floor and lashed straight for him.
It was Kurapika.