Three hours.
The suppression lifted the way pressure releases from a sealed container: quietly, completely, and all at once.
One moment Liam's aura was fifty. The next moment it was everything, flooding back through his system in a single smooth surge, sixty-two thousand returning to circulation with the particular satisfaction of something that had been waiting and was now very much done waiting. The wind transmutation was already active in the same instant, the full load of it converting outward, spreading around him on the reef with enough force to flatten the lake surface for several meters in every direction.
The divine script in his number plate answered immediately.
He had not forgotten it was there. He had been watching for this exact moment. But knowing the trigger and experiencing it were different things, and the speed of the activation was faster than he had anticipated: the inscriptions in the mezzanine lit, the field opened, and the dark space pulled him through before he had completed the thought about what was happening.
Black. Then light.
A room.
It was the size of a waiting area, furnished with the specific austerity of a space that had been designed for temporary occupancy and did not feel the need to apologize for it. No tables. No chairs. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor, and the people standing against them.
Machi, against one wall.
Kurapika, against the opposite wall. His clothes had seen better hours. Several cuts along his arms and across his jacket, healing already at the pace of someone who did not have a Star Mark accelerating the process. He held himself with the self-possession of a person who had fought something, finished the fight, and was not going to explain the details unless asked directly.
Against the third wall, sitting on the floor with one knee up and a book open on it, was a man in a suit and glasses. Hair slicked back. The specific cold stillness of a professional who had heard enough conversations to know which ones were worth participating in.
Liam stood where the space door had deposited him and assessed the room.
"You came in too," Kurapika said. Less a question, more an acknowledgment.
"I had to, once Shizuku went missing." He looked at Machi. "You went in through the reef. I was watching."
Machi said nothing.
"Hisoka and Pariston are still outside. Neither of them used their Nen abilities after the suppression lifted." He thought through the timing. Pariston had been in the hotel corridor. Hisoka had gone back into the lake. Neither of them had triggered the number plate activation because neither of them had done the one thing the inscription required: actively deploy a Nen ability. "They figured out the condition, or they got lucky by accident."
The suit man on the floor looked up from his book. "It's a bit strong to call it a trap," he said. His voice had the measured quality of someone who chose words carefully and used the minimum number of them.
"What's your name?" Liam asked.
"Knov. Professional Hunter." He set the book down against his knee. "I'm not the examiner here. Someone else handles that part."
The wall beside Knov opened.
Not a door. A vortex, dark and deliberate, the kind of spatial movement that was either a very sophisticated Nen ability or something adjacent to it. From the vortex came Shizuku.
She walked out with her hair in disarray and one sleeve of her sweater missing from the elbow down and the right leg of her jeans cut cleanly from mid-thigh. Cuts on both arms, one on her cheek, one along her shoulder blade where the sweater had been torn away. She walked toward Liam with the directness of someone who knows where they are going and considers everything between here and there to be a detail.
The cuts healed as she moved. The Star Mark did not ask for instructions.
"You're here too," she said. "Good." She stood beside him. "That examiner. Be careful. Very strong."
Liam put his hands on her shoulders and checked her over with Gyo: aura almost completely depleted, the kind of exhaustion that comes from spending everything available. No internal damage the Star Mark wasn't already addressing. He released her.
"Next," said Knov, looking at Machi.
Machi stood without comment.
Knov pressed his palm to the wall. "The examiner on the other side evaluates you personally. Pass or fail is his judgment alone. Pass means a Hunter license on the spot. Fail means come back next year." He paused. "Or don't."
"Open it," said Machi.
The vortex appeared. She stepped through. It closed.
Liam looked at Kurapika.
Kurapika was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded. "I passed."
"You look like someone who passed and found it annoying."
"The examiner was..." Kurapika chose his words with care. "He delayed. Deliberately. He had made his assessment early but waited for me to keep going. He wanted to see everything." He stopped. "I did not show him everything."
Liam processed this. Kurapika had not used the scarlet eyes. Had not shown the books designed specifically for the Phantom Troupe or the clan eye recovery ability. Had passed anyway, on the portion he was willing to reveal.
Smart.
Shizuku said: "He copied the chainsaw immediately. As soon as he saw it."
Liam's attention sharpened.
"He copied a Conjuration ability?" Kurapika straightened.
"He couldn't copy Blinky," Shizuku added. "Just the chainsaw."
Liam thought about the distinction. Blinky was a complete conjured construct with its own internal logic, an entire object that required sustained maintenance and had specific rules embedded in its design. The chainsaw was a Transmutation technique, aura converted to a shape with specific properties. Striking. Physical. The kind of ability that could theoretically be reproduced by someone with sufficient Transmutation proficiency and the speed to observe and reconstruct it.
He looked at Shizuku's torn clothes.
He thought about who could replicate a Transmutation-type ability from a single observation, fast enough to deploy it in the same fight.
Knov heard all of this and had the expression of someone filing information they had not been given clearance to receive, then deciding not to address it.
The vortex opened again forty minutes later.
Machi walked out.
Her face had settled into the particular arrangement it wore when she was annoyed about something she was not going to explain. Liam looked at her and then looked at Knov.
Knov held the wall open.
The room on the other side was larger. Much larger. Empty in the way that large spaces are empty when they have been specifically cleared of everything: no furniture, no features, just floor and walls and a ceiling high enough to make the space feel like an interior courtyard. The vortex closed behind Liam and he was alone.
Except for the one other person in the room.
Standing in the center.
Long black hair tied up and back in a topknot, the bun compact and practical above the neck. A beard that had decided to become substantial about it, thick enough that it covered his chest below the chin in dense, dark growth. His clothing was plain but not modern, the kind of style that belonged to someone who had stopped caring about fashion at some specific point and had not revisited the question since.
The posture was easy. Not careless. There was a difference.
Liam looked at the hair. The beard. The stance.
Something in the back of his mind produced a recognition that arrived without announcing itself, the way you recognize a piece of music before you can name it.
He knew this face.
He had seen it before, in a different context, without the beard, years younger and considerably more chaotic in expression. He had seen it at the center of a giant arrow pointed at the sky, standing in front of him with the playful calm of someone who considered life an interesting problem to keep exploring.
The beard was different. The topknot was different. But the underlying architecture was the same.
He looked at the man standing in the middle of the room and said nothing for a moment, working through the fact that Netero had arranged for this specific person to run a hidden exam level, and what that said about Netero's sense of humor, and whether the two of them were going to pretend they had never met.
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