In an old wooden house, perched on the edge of Fox Island, the night pressed down with an unfamiliar weight. The sea outside lay calm, a deceptive hush, but within the house, the silence was ripped apart every few minutes.
"Ahh…!"
A woman's cry, sharp with pain, sliced through the air, potent enough to make even the wind seem to hold its breath. Several women huddled around the bed, their faces a mix of worry and strained anticipation. The eldest among them, an old woman with weathered hands, gripped the young woman's hand.
"Azma… breathe slowly. Push. Almost there."
Her voice, though she tried to steady it, wavered. Azma bit down on a thick piece of cloth, sweat beading on her forehead. Hours crawled by, each one stretching longer than the last. The old woman had seen countless births in her life on this island, but this one felt different. Harder. Heavier. As if the child fought against entering the world.
Then, after a struggle that seemed to last an eternity, Azma's screams abruptly faded. A long, shuddering exhale left her chest, followed by a brief, tense silence…
Then, another cry.
But this time, it wasn't pain. It was life.
"Aah… eh… aaahh…!"
Tense shoulders sagged with relief. The women exchanged weary, joyful glances. The child was alive.
...
Darkness. Silent. Boundless.
"…Where am I?"
The thought wasn't spoken, but formed in a hazy, disoriented mind.
"What happened?"
Questions surfaced slowly, as if his consciousness was struggling to reassemble itself. "The last thing I remember…"
A blank space. Then, an image. An airplane seat. The low hum of engines. A flight bound for Germany.
Then—
Nothing. Absolute silence.
"Did I… die?"
There was no fear in the thought, only a dry, academic curiosity, like someone reviewing the results of a long-delayed exam. Before he could delve deeper into this analysis, light erupted.
It wasn't gradual. It was an invasion. A blinding beam tore through the darkness without warning, followed by an irresistible force pushing him towards it. Pressure. Tightness. A violent, involuntary movement.
Then a sound, raw and primal, tore from him.
Crying.
He didn't choose it. It wasn't his decision. His body screamed, not him.
"…Interesting."
Even his thoughts felt sluggish, heavy.
"No wonder the birth was difficult. The child was upside down."
A woman's voice, somewhere nearby. The language… strangely familiar, yet he couldn't quite place it. He knew it, or perhaps, he was supposed to know it.
Then, something new. Warmth. Arms lifting him, a soft embrace.
He tried to open his eyes. The light was a harsh assault, irritating, as if the world was overdoing its welcome.
"If this is an official reception, it's a bit excessive."
Finally, he managed to crack his eyes open. A woman's face hovered above him, etched with exhaustion, yet her eyes shone with something deeper than fatigue. He couldn't make out her full features, save for one detail: her hair. Dark black, so profound it seemed to drink the light, a stark contrast to the brightly lit room.
She laughed softly, a fragile sound despite her weakness.
"What a stubborn child you are… you truly exhausted me."
Then she added, her voice a blend of tenderness and weariness:
"You resemble your father very much…"
She paused, as if savoring the name before speaking it.
"Toji."
The name hung in the air.
"That is your name… Toji Fushiguro."
Outside the house, the sea remained calm. But on that night, on Fox Island… something was born that would not be ordinary.
...
(Four Years Later)
Beneath the sprawling shade of an ancient tree, a wild boar sought refuge from the scorching late July sun. The air hung thick with the scent of the sea, mingling with the forest's earthy perfume, lending the place a tranquil, almost tropical feel. Birdsong filtered through the branches, and the breeze stirred lazily, as if reluctant to disturb the stillness.
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
In the next instant, a knife buried itself in the boar's flank, pinning it to the tree trunk with a force that belied the age of the one who threw it. The massive body shuddered once… then went still.
Toji emerged from the bushes with a confident stride. He looked older than his four years, perhaps eight, his features calm, his eyes holding a gaze far beyond that of an ordinary child. He approached his kill, examining it with a satisfied, almost clinical, expression.
"Clean hit."
No pride in his voice, just a cold assessment.
"The knife's broken again," he muttered, turning it over in his hands. His voice was small, tired, almost hopeful for a second. "I need a better weapon."
Which would have been easier if anyone were willing to arm a four-year-old with something lethal. Sadly, the adults of the world had standards. Bastards.
Sigh.
He tied the boar to a staff he carried, then hoisted it over his shoulder without a hint of strain. To an observer, the scene would have been absurd: a slender child carrying a wild boar three times his size.
"One is enough for this week… I still have to skin and cut it."
He'd hunted wild boar every day for the last six months. At first, tracking, killing, and surviving had been a conscious effort, but now it was pure instinct.
Some of the meat went to his village near the town; the rest was sold there. Most of the money was saved, because he would definitely need it later. Assuming he lived that long.
Eventually, he limited his hunting to once or twice a week. The main reason was the dwindling population – too many hunters, not enough prey. And, frankly, stabbing the same animals over and over wasn't teaching him anything new anymore.
He paused, weighing an idea.
"Should I leave it to old Kolher to skin it…?"
A brief silence.
"No. By the time I return, it'll be a 'practical lesson' for every kid on the pier."
He continued walking between the trees, the boar swaying rhythmically over his shoulder with his steady steps.
He hadn't expected to grow accustomed to this life so quickly. Only four years… and yet, it felt as though he had lived here for a very long time.
The first year in this world was… embarrassing. It had been closer to a harsh disciplining of pride. A man with a fully formed mind, trapped inside the body of an infant who couldn't even control the simplest bodily functions.
"How do MCs in reincarnation novels do it?" he wondered coolly. "They're born, they open their eyes, contemplate the ceiling with profound wisdom… then control everything as if they're in a training seminar."
As for him, he couldn't even control when or where he shat. It had been… humiliating.
It wasn't the physical helplessness that bothered him, but the realization. The realization that awareness alone was not enough. No matter how mature his mind was, the body had its own laws. And during that year, he had been completely subject to them.
"It was really tough."
And yet… amid that daily embarrassment, there had been something else. Something he hadn't expected. He saw how his mother cared for him. How she stayed awake for him, carried him, smiled despite her exhaustion.
It wasn't mechanical duty. It was genuine care.
In his previous life, he hadn't properly valued that kind of affection. Perhaps because he hadn't understood it, or because he hadn't needed to understand it back then. Now, completely helpless, he saw it clearly.
At first, he resisted the feeling.
"Attachment?"
The word felt uncomfortable. He tried to approach it with his usual cool detachment, as if it were merely a temporary connection between an infant and a woman fulfilling her natural role.
But emotions are not always governed by logic. Little by little, without any formal declaration… he found himself loving her. Not out of need. Nor out of gratitude alone. But because he wanted to. And that, for some reason, was a truth heavier than all the embarrassment he had endured in his first year.
...
In some ways, he felt a freedom he had never known in his previous world. No restraints. No glass walls. No life moving along a predetermined path.
And in other ways… this world was not normal. It was dangerous.
He discovered the truth of his existence in the world of Hunter × Hunter when he was three years old. He had overheard the village youths speaking excitedly about traveling to Yorknew City. The name had sounded familiar… but he'd ignored it at the time. Until, some time later, he heard old Kolher casually mention the "Hunter Association."
Everything inside him froze. His first reaction was not excitement. It was fear. To be born into a fictional world was one thing… but to be born into a world where people could be killed for trivial reasons, or simply because they were in the wrong place… that was something else.
Then came the second feeling. Despair. This was a world that did not spare the weak.
And the third feeling… was a faint smile that didn't touch his lips, but formed deep within him.
"At least… I was born into a world whose rules I know."
Here, a person could do things that would have been considered impossible in his previous life. Things that surpassed logic itself.
...
When he first tried to sense Nen through meditation, he felt it immediately. It wasn't gradual. It was clear… like a hidden current surrounding everything. Perhaps because he did not originally belong to this world, his perception of energy was different. Sharper. More aware.
The excitement he felt in that moment was genuine. But it did not last long. His attempts to open his aura nodes through meditation and intense training lasted an entire year.
The result? Fifteen percent.
"…Disappointing."
He couldn't even surpass that threshold. He remembered Wing's explanation to Gon and Killua about the differences in innate talent. Toji felt a trace of injustice. Talent shortened the road.
"At least… in the last month I've become three times faster than before at opening the aura nodes."
He lifted his gaze toward the sky between the trees.
"But at this rate… I won't fully open them for another two years."
A note of complaint could be heard in his voice.
"It's fine."
If he couldn't accelerate the opening of his nodes, there were other things he could do. Train the body first. A strong body was the foundation of everything in this world – with Nen or without it. Then gradually attempt to master Zetsu and Ten. Even without fully opening his aura, one could adapt to the basic concepts. Gon had done it indirectly… and meditation helped greatly, no matter how simple it seemed, in deepening one's sense of Ten.
As for Hatsu… he postponed thinking about it entirely. He knew himself well. If he conducted the Water Divination test and determined his type after a year (even though he would likely have opened no more than around 50% at that time), he would jump straight to developing a special ability, neglecting the fundamentals out of excitement.
"A common mistake."
And mistakes in this world… could be fatal.
He had a preliminary idea about the type he was most likely to possess. And he had an initial concept of the kind of user he wanted to become. But an idea was one thing… execution was another.
He continued walking calmly, the boar still resting on his shoulder.
"Two years…" he muttered to himself. "Just two years."
Then he smiled faintly – a smile that did not suit his age.