Larry blinked in confusion, watching Kurapika move to what looked like an ordinary patch of forest. Then it suddenly clicked. "Wait… don't tell me this is, "
Before he could finish, Kurapika reached forward, and the air around his body shimmered. A wave of white ripples appeared, distorting the space for a brief moment. And then he vanished.
Larry stared in shock. One second Kurapika was there, the next he was gone like the forest had swallowed him whole.
Without wasting another second, Larry stepped forward and mimicked Kurapika's movements.
As he brushed against the same spot, his vision wavered, and the world around him twisted. His head felt light for a moment, as if he were being gently pulled through a tunnel. Then, in an instant, he was somewhere else entirely.
It felt eerily similar to being teleported by a Gardevoir.
Kurapika stood waiting in front of him and spoke softly, "The reason our Kurta clan has managed to remain hidden for so long is because we don't live directly in the mountains… we live in a secret place."
Larry looked around, letting the truth sink in. 'So I was right…'
It reminded him of something from the beginning of Hunter x Hunter. The narrator had spoken of rare beasts, hidden treasures, unexplored lands, and something else, makyō. Demonic realms, or maybe magical lands. The translation was always fuzzy, but the feeling stuck with him. Realms that didn't belong in the ordinary world.
Most of it had sounded like flavor text, stuff that never came up again. But when Kurapika vanished into thin air, those old words stirred in Larry's memory. And now, Kurapika had confirmed it, this was one of those places. A realm beyond the map. A place the narration had hinted at, once, and never again.
That explained how the Kurta clan had managed to stay hidden for so long. The Scarlet Eyes were one of the seven wonders of the world.
No matter how remote or deep in the mountains they lived, someone would've eventually found them. But this place… this secret realm, with an entrance hidden in plain sight, made it possible for them to truly disappear.
Unless someone stumbled in by accident, no outsider would ever know it existed.
Just as Larry was piecing everything together, something new popped up in his mind. A fresh new bar had appeared. He wasn't shocked this time. What really caught his attention was what kind of Pokémon it would be.
"Come on, Larry. I'll show you around," Kurapika said, leading him forward.
They walked deeper into the hidden village. Even here, tall trees stretched in every direction, and the Kurta clan's homes were built right among them.
The architecture was unusual, it didn't look like normal houses, not the kind with square walls or peaked roofs.
Instead, they resembled yurts, semicircular dome-like structures with strange, intricate patterns decorating the surface.
One thing that really caught Larry off guard was how strange everything looked in this hidden village.
The trees, the grass, even the houses, everything was covered in swirling, circular patterns. It reminded him a lot of the markings found on Devil Fruits in the One Piece world.
"Kurapika, why does everything here have those spiral patterns?" Larry asked, genuinely puzzled.
But even Kurapika, who had grown up here, didn't have an answer. "It's always been like this," he said quietly. "Ever since I can remember."
As they got closer to Kurapika's old home, Larry started noticing the scars left behind by the past. Many of the houses were damaged, some had large holes in their walls, others had completely collapsed. Just from the ruins, it was clear that a massive battle had once taken place here.
Kurapika didn't say much. He simply walked, eventually arriving at a place that felt different, heavier. The land was uneven, filled with small mounds that rose like gentle hills across the area. It didn't take long for Larry to realize what this place was.
A graveyard.
Each mound marked the resting place of a lost tribesman. But there were no headstones, no names to tell one grave from another. Larry figured even Kurapika didn't know which mound belonged to whom.
The Kurta clan had numbered 128 people. It wasn't a small tribe. And judging by what Larry remembered from the manga, many of them had been brutally murdered, some even while they were still alive.
Their bodies had been left with terrible wounds, sometimes decapitated, all to ensure the retrieval of the Scarlet Eyes.
No heads. Identical clothes. Scattered bodies. The whole thing must have been a horrifying mess.
Even Kurapika, who had returned with hope of finding something, could only stand among the graves and accept the silence. He knew one thing for sure all of his people were gone.
Using "Gyo," Larry activated his observation and noticed something chilling, dark, lingering remnants of aura floated faintly over the cemetery.
These weren't ordinary aura these were fragments of death, still echoing across the graves like faint whispers. There weren't many, but their presence was enough to make the air feel heavy.
In front of the many burial mounds stood a single, larger stone monument. Lines of unfamiliar text were carved into its surface.
Larry looked closely and confirmed it wasn't in the common language of the Six Continents. It was likely the Kurta tribe's own script, probably a kind of prayer or memorial.
Kurapika stepped forward and stood in front of the monument. His eyes slowly turned scarlet, burning with a silent intensity. Then he began to speak, almost in a chant:
""The sun above, the earth below,
From soil our bodies rise,
From starlight our spirits flow."
"The trees remember our laughter,
The wind carries our cries.
In silence, we return,
But our gaze never dies."
His voice was soft but steady, and with each word, it felt like his sorrow became something almost physical, something the wind itself could carry.
"O scarlet flame that burns within,
O eyes that mourn, yet see
Bear our sorrow to the skies,
And keep our memory free."
"Let our grief be not forgotten.
Let our names be carved in flame.
Let the world remember the Kurta,
And the curse bound to our name."
The breeze that blew through the trees suddenly changed direction, drifting gently past Kurapika, then sweeping across the quiet hills.
It merged with the scattered death auras, stirring them slightly, like shadows shifting in the wind. The moment stretched, the air thick with grief, and still Kurapika stood silently.
Half of his revenge had been fulfilled. But the fire inside him hadn't died. He would keep moving forward, carrying his clan's pain with him, until the last of the murderers received the punishment they deserved.
What happened next felt almost magical. Kurapika clearly didn't know how to dispel aura residue, especially the kind born from death and hatred.
But under the weight of his emotional prayer, something began to change. The black, oppressive death aura that had lingered above the cemetery slowly began to fade. It wasn't gone entirely, but the heavy clouds of it had visibly thinned.