This mission had cost them everything. Their main fighters were gone. Six core members, wiped out. The Phantom Troupe had never taken a hit this hard. The spider was crippled.
Among those who remained, even Hisoka couldn't exactly be called a true companion.
The rest, Shizuku, Machi, Pakunoda, and Kortopi, were all considered support members. The only reliable powerhouse left was Kuroro, their leader, but the Phantom Troupe's frontline strength had been gutted.
Aside from Kuroro, the only member with real offensive capability now was Peeler Lev, who stood out compared to the other support-type fighters.
And all it took was one person. Larry.
Larry had managed to utterly cripple the Phantom Troupe without them even putting up a proper fight. It was a complete rout.
At that moment, Kuroro finally understood what Silva Zoldyck had once told him.'You really can't fight Larry.'
At least… not with their current strength.
Losing half the team in one operation, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the troupe was close to disbanding.
Kuroro now faced a crushing new burden, rebuilding the team. And even if he could recruit six new members to replace those they lost, they'd never be like Uvogin and the others friends he'd fought beside for years.
They wouldn't carry the same trust, history, or bond.
Late that night, one by one, the surviving members stepped out of the abandoned building and disappeared into the shadows, heading in different directions. They didn't speak. The only thing they shared was the look on their faces heavy, dark, and hollow.
They had arrived as thirteen. Now only seven remained. Except for Hisoka. He was the only one wearing a smile.
In fact, he was even more satisfied than he'd been in the original timeline. Now that the Troupe was weakened, he was already scheming again thinking about how to push Kuroro into a fight.
But after giving it some thought, Hisoka decided he should be more cautious this time.
Despite the massive losses, Kuroro's guard rotation hadn't changed much.
When not on a mission, the Troupe usually split across the six continents, each member doing their own thing. Feitan and Phinks often traveled together, but not always.
As for Kuroro, he was almost always protected by at least two members. Normally, those selected to guard him came from Kortopi, Shalnark, or Pakunoda.
So Hisoka's usual aggressive approach wouldn't cut it. He'd have to find another method. Still, Larry had made things much easier for him.
In the original events, Kortopi would use his ability to copy the auction items, while Illumi handled broadcasting the deaths of the Ten Dons. Even their fake corpses had been replicated, convincing the world that the Troupe was dead.
But now?
With Larry lurking somewhere in the shadows, the danger was real and constant.
Staying in Yorknew even a moment longer could be fatal. Naturally, none of them wanted to bother with copying corpses or staging fakes anymore.
Their long-awaited reunion mission ended in utter failure. Half of the Troupe was gone. The spider had lost its legs.
They were forced to retreat, broken and humiliated.
As for the world's crime syndicates?
They had it even worse. At least the Phantom Troupe had managed to steal some auction goods. The gangs lost everything goods, resources, and an overwhelming number of lives.
The Mafia had spent a fortune hiring the Zoldyck family to take out the Phantom Troupe. Yet in the end, they didn't manage to kill a single one of them.
Instead, it was the Ten Dons, the very leaders of the world's underground, who ended up assassinated. In the chaos that followed, it became clear: both sides in the Yorknew conflict had lost.
Only one party walked away victorious Larry and Kurapika. Their success left a deep impression. Every surviving member of the Troupe now had a name etched into their memory Larry.
***
In the days that followed, the world's Mafia organizations continued to search high and low for the Troupe, but it was as if they had vanished from existence.
No one could trace where they had gone. They left no signs, no clues. It felt intentional, as though they didn't want to be found.
To the public and other criminal groups, it looked like the Phantom Troupe had gone into hiding to avoid retaliation from the Mafia.
But only a handful of people knew the real reason. They weren't hiding from the Mafia. They were hiding from Larry.
The terrifying force behind Larry's actions had left the Troupe shaken to the core. And while they were scrambling to escape his shadow, Larry himself had already lost interest in them. He'd gotten what he wanted from the experience. The growth, the confrontation it was all done.
Kuroro was the only one still worth watching, so Larry left the rest to Kurapika. His attention was now set on something else entirely the long lost ruins of the Kurta Tribe.
The Kurta region was surrounded by towering mountains and dense forests, the trees forming a vast, almost endless sea of green.
Once, the Kurta clan had thrived here. But now, the tribe was gone. Wiped out.
Swish, swish, swish...
Branches and leaves brushed past as Kurapika darted through the woods, his voice carrying a rare trace of excitement. "We should be close. I remember it being just around here."
This visit was more than just a guide's duty. It was a personal moment Bringing Larry here gave Kurapika the chance to return and pay his respects.
To stand before the graves of his people and tell them that justice had begun. His revenge, at last, was halfway complete. And none of it would have been possible without Larry.
He would make sure they knew that.
Unlike Kurapika, who was dashing ahead with purpose, Larry was in no rush. He lay sprawled on the back of his Arcanine, relaxed and thoughtful.
It reminded him of the time he traveled with Hisoka, when they'd gone searching for the Shadow.
The scene was almost identical.
As the Arcanine moved smoothly through the forest, Larry gazed up through the trees, wondering to himself.
'Would there be Pokémon here too, like last time? And if there were… what kind of Pokémon would dwell among the ruins of the Kurta Tribe?'
For a moment, Larry couldn't even guess what kind of Pokémon the Kurta clan might be able to breed. But before he could think more about it, Kurapika came to a sudden stop in front of a large tree and didn't go any farther.
"So, we're finally here?" Larry asked as he jumped off the Wind Speed Dog, glancing around with curiosity.
They were still deep in the forest. There was no sign of a village, no open space, and certainly no buildings.
"The entrance is right here," Kurapika said calmly.
He walked toward a large tree with a moss-covered rock beside it, roughly half the height of a person. The rock had visible cracks, worn smooth by time and weather.
Kurapika didn't hesitate as he stepped toward the narrow space between the tree and the rock. The gap was just wide enough for a person to pass through.