Chapter 12: Hisoka Gets Stood Up Anyway
Ross wasn't sure whether other people experienced the same thing — standing at a great height and looking down, feeling the instinctive fear arrive right alongside a small, irrational impulse to do a Leap of Faith anyway.
This time, he went with the impulse.
After brief and largely unsuccessful mental preparation that left his hands still faintly trembling, Ross pressed the forward button on the d-pad and went straight over the edge, plunging headfirst down the cliff face.
What followed: his legs, working on instinct, kept pressing against the rock in continuous contact through the descent. Five seconds of that was all it took to meet the precondition for Sonic Speed Movement to reach its current maximum. The jagged drop that should by all rights have killed him had become a straight-line track — rough underfoot, but usable.
"Oh?"
Netero, peering down from above with his chin over the edge, involuntarily tightened the hand that had been stroking his beard.
At the same time, Satotz — who had lingered at the second phase venue and hitched a ride on the airship when it came — paused slightly, then returned to normal.
He had already planned to file a report with the Association about keeping an eye on badge 406's development. But bringing that directly to the highest leadership was a different matter, and in the ordinary course of things, he didn't have the kind of access that would make reporting something minor to the Chairman a realistic option.
If badge 406 had already managed to draw the Chairman's attention on his own, though, Satotz could look for the right moment to add a word.
No deceleration. Straight vertical descent. At the point where the cliff face forced a ninety-degree redirection, Ross hit the B button, launched himself onto the silk threads spanning the gorge, kept running across them, ducked low, and swept one hand casually through the air. When it came back up, there were two eggs sitting in his palm: grey-bottomed, black-spotted, patterned like marble.
When Ross ran back up the cliff face with the eggs and crested the top.
"Is this what Sonic's everyday life is like..."
It was less the physical expenditure than what it felt like to force himself through the hard limit of his own fear. The particular charge that came with crossing that threshold was not in any hurry to dissipate.
The most extreme thing he had ever done back on Earth was sitting in the front row of a roller coaster. Bungee jumping was something he had never touched and had no plans to. The ropeless variety was several categories beyond that.
Eggs acquired. Time to cook them. Per Menchi's requirements, a boiled egg pulled at exactly the right moment was the only answer that cleared her challenge. Ross didn't know the precise cooking time for this species, but he remembered the signal clearly from the original story: when the bird egg floated up and bounced on its own in the water, that was the moment.
Because everyone was cooking in the same large iron pot, when they saw Ross suddenly reach in and pull an egg, they followed, one by one.
A portion of them decided they knew better and held off. Their eggs came out overcooked.
Ross cracked open his Grape Spider egg. The white looked normal at first — nothing visually distinguishing it from a standard boiled egg. The moment he bit in, he understood why this creature was classified as a beast species. The white was silky and soft. The yolk was rich and slightly granular, with a natural sweetness underneath everything else. If he hadn't boiled and pulled it himself, Ross might have believed someone had hidden a perfect caramel egg custard inside the shell before handing it to him.
"Exam complete! Second phase qualifiers — forty-five total!"
Menchi declared the exam over on the spot.
The forty-five qualifiers boarded the airship again. Everyone else who hadn't gone into the gorge rapids got transportation in Association-dispatched jeeps to the nearest human settlement.
Those people were the lucky ones. The candidates who had the nerve to jump but not the skill to land were probably already in the catch nets positioned at the river mouth, face-down and waterlogged.
Watching the sunset through the airship window, Ross let out a long, bone-deep yawn.
Rough estimate: he had been awake for over thirty hours. His body was holding up, but the warning lights had been on in his head for a while.
He had vague plans to find a corner and get a proper session in on his Little Tyrant during the flight. His body had other opinions. He just wanted to sleep.
"We are scheduled to arrive at the third phase venue at eight-ten tomorrow morning. Until we reach the next venue, candidates have free time. Dismissed!"
Menchi delivered the essential information and the dismissal with the brisk efficiency of a teacher wrapping up a school field trip. The remaining candidates scattered.
Ross found a corner in the assembly hall, lay down, and was producing loud and definitive snoring within approximately five seconds.
The speed of his entry into sleep and the volume of what followed confirmed the same thing: he was genuinely, thoroughly done.
What Ross did not know was that his near-instantaneous disappearance into sleep caused Hisoka to visibly stagger, his body trembling slightly in a way that was plainly visible to anyone watching. After a full minute of this, Hisoka bit down on the nail of his right thumb, stepped back several paces, slid down the wall behind him into a seated position on the floor, and began muttering in a low voice.
"Hold it together... have to hold it together... the unripe fruit still needs to grow..."
To suppress the physiological impulse, Hisoka — having taken considerably longer than usual to collect himself — produced a deck of playing cards as if from thin air and began building a card pyramid.
Meanwhile, the three examiners had gathered for a small meeting in the lounge on the airship's upper level. The conversation found its natural way to the candidates.
Although Menchi had come close to eliminating everyone out of sheer stubbornness, having recovered her senses, she acknowledged plainly that the overall caliber of this year's group was genuinely high — even if there were plenty of infuriating individuals in the mix.
"Badge 406. That kid has some nerve. He just sat there and ate all the rice that was supposed to be used in the exam!"
Menchi's complaint came with audible frustration.
It proved a saying true: you might forget who gave you a gift, but you never forget who didn't. Ross had fallen squarely into the latter category. He had known exactly how events were going to unfold, and he was also genuinely hungry, so during the entirety of Menchi's ordeal he had done nothing but sit in a corner eating — never once making even a token attempt at the challenge. And that was precisely what had lodged him in her memory.
"Buhara, don't you agree?"
Menchi looked over for agreement and found Buhara wearing an expression of genuine contemplation instead. Before anyone else could speak, Satotz — who was somehow managing to drink tea despite having no mouth — entered the conversation.
"If I told you that badge 406 awakened to Nen for the first time approximately ten minutes before the first phase began — what would you make of that?"
"What? That's actually true?"
Menchi stared with undisguised disbelief.
Buhara — whose custom teacup was roughly the size of a pot for boiling milk — looked over with the same expression.
The mouthless examiner nodded.
"Completely true. He's already demonstrated at least two distinct Nen abilities. But it appears he's gone sideways from the standard development path."
"Sideways?" both Gourmet Hunters said at once.
"He seems to have no ability to use Ten whatsoever, and instead skipped the foundational stage entirely — jumping straight to Zetsu and Hatsu. In my view, a naturally gifted self-taught Nen user like this can't simply be left to develop however he happens to develop, even if he never becomes a professional Hunter. He needs a good instructor before the foundation goes completely crooked. I've been debating whether to mention it to the Chairman as well..."
"Oh? Is there something interesting to report to this old man?"
A familiar voice. The room went still — and then Netero appeared, silent and unhurried, as if he had simply materialized from the walls.