"Could you rewind that camera?" asked the tall man in his military-style combat outfit, pointing at the camera, the cold eyes below his beret focusing on the screen.
"Huh, sure?" replied the member of the Mafia Community responsible for the monitoring as he selected the particular camera for precision control.
The assassin grabbed the control wheel and replayed the scene, frame for frame.
A dark-haired young man in a suit and a blue-haired girl in a dress passing by the armed mafia guards in a corridor. But suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the girl began to drop forward as if she fainted.
Something about that scene bugged him. It was how the girl fell that felt wrong.
Normally a person suddenly fainting, their feet would give in, and they would drop down on their knees, bending before falling forwards.
Instead here the blue-haired girl fell directly forward, as if there was a push. Stop. There.
It was only one frame; it showed the blurred image of a hand. The Boys hand.
An extremely swift and precise blow. He could have taken her head off with too much force.
A wide, excited grin spread on his face, "Heh, heh, heh, heh…"
Leaving the monitoring room, he headed towards the floor where it had just happened.
He smelled it. That Scent! A trail of blood purposely dripped onto the floor and then wiped up, enough to leave a scent.
Barely enough to be followed by certain people. Another Predator!
Carefully sneaking through the well-decorated floor of the Cemetery Building, the assassin felt uncomfortable. As if someone had been watching him. But that feeling had been there before he even reached the floor.
Another of the Assassins?
It didn't matter. There it is. Behind that Door.
Suddenly something grabbed him by his neck.
From behind? How? How did anyone sneak up on him?
He couldn't see who or what it was; he got weaker in a matter of seconds, losing all the strength in his body. His skin was getting wrinkled as if the life had been sucked out of him.
The grip on his neck was firm; there was no chance of escape. He had been too weak before he could have even reacted.
Then he was dead.
———
'Tch, barely 15 minutes. That guy should have been stronger.' Harry tought as he felt the increase in his Aura, as the dust of the Assassin in the Barret dropped on the Floor in front of him as he stepped trough his Portal.
It wasn't like he had big expectations for that assassin, but he should be stronger than the average Nen user. And Harry had felt that he was stronger. That Guy should have been able to constantly fight in Ren for six hours or so, giving him at least 1.5 hours or so.
But that didn't happen.
And then he realized it! Diminishing returns!
The more Aura he had, the more Aura he used for his training, and the more his Aura grew. At the same time, the more Aura he uses to keep up his Ren.
That's why 3 hours of Ren training a day was enough to keep up peak performance and improve daily! It was the Aura Quantity that mattered, not the Duration!
With higher Aura Quantity, the consumption during Ren, of course, also gets bigger.
So weaker opponents don't as add much to his Aura Quantity; he could either look for stronger ones or a lot of them.
At least he still got their Hatsu. Summoning a military combat knife in his hand.
A Knife Conjuration Hatsu is slightly disappointing on its own but good enough for Harry.
Not only does it improve his mastery of the Conjuration category, but there are enough combinations he could use that Hatsu for with his own.
The knife glowed for a moment dark purple as Harry opened the door.
Inside was another one of the hired assassins sitting on a chair. Probably Dead. Bleeding out of his mouth.
Harry threw the knife directly at his heart. After all, Nen Mastery wasn't all he gained from his victims. He gets all their abilities, even something like their mastery over knife combat.
He would have to train in the ability himself, to use it perfectly and develop the muscle memory. But he was good enough for a start.
"Don't worry." A shape appeared from behind the now definitely dead assassin, a black-haired young man with black eyes looking directly at him, now standing tall and smiling, "I don't use traps. That would be too boring."
Harry smiled too, as Chrollo Lucilfer stood there in a combat-ready position with nothing more than a bloody pen in his hand that he pulled out of the dead assassin's head.
"Let's fight one on one."
"Sure, that was my intention from the start, oh infamous boss of the spider." Harry said before he disappeared, "Don't let your guard down."
Chrollo fell backward as a punch connected with his face, and Harry was right beside him. Moving at high speed, he jumped backwards, dodging the second punch coming his way.
Harry, in the meantime, had to move his own face out of the way as the pen, enhanced with Nen, flew right through the spot where his head had been a moment ago.
"That's dangerous. You could have poked my eye out." Harry said as two more knives appeared in each of his hands.
Chrollo observed him carefully, his eyes momentarily flickering towards the knife sticking out of the assassin corpse beside me. "That is unexpected. I didn't think the Mafia would hire someone like you. You can move quickly to your knife or even teleport to it. Am I right?"
A red and black book had appeared in his hand. On the cover was the white imprint of a hand, and its name was 'Bandit's Secret.'.
"Eh, is that one of the conditions you have to fulfill to steal my Nen ability?" Harry asked, already aware of the answer, "Let me guess. In order to steal my Nen, you need to fulfill 4-5 conditions. Probably seeing my ability and me explaining it to you is part of it. No, rather asking questions about it and getting it answered. You wouldn't have tried if I had to explain everything about my Nen."
"You are well informed." Chrollo replied, looking at him with these unmoving black eyes.
"Information is half the battle." Harry replied, "You can give up on stealing my Nen. Even if I explain it to you, you will probably have to fulfill a special extra condition to steal a very powerful or rare Nen ability."
That's the truth. Harry just shared it with him to unsettle him. Although he didn't expect it to have much effect. But in order to steal a rare and powerful Nen ability, Chrollo had to steal an object worth a national treasure before any other condition. And the ability to manipulate space fulfilled that criteria.
Before Chrollo could reply, two more knives flew at him. Both left and right, impacting the floor and a wall behind him as he rolled out of the way. Keeping his distance from the knives. His book was gone again.
Harry kept throwing more knives, and Chrollo kept dodging, always aware of the knife's location. At the next Knife, the one sticking out of the corpse had disappeared.
As soon as he had moved close enough to Harry, Chrollo had a knife of his own in hand, stabbing at him. Having expected that Harry vanished, appearing beside one of his knives close to the wall, "A mid-era Ben's knife? Good weapon."
"Someone so familiar with the weapon type would, of course, recognize it." Chrollo chuckled, "Well, it's not like there is much use to it. This cat-and-mouse game will go on until one of us tires."
'Bandits Secret' once again appearing in his hand, and he opened a page while dodging another knife Harry threw at him, "Eight. That is the maximal number of knives you can conjure at the same time. As soon as you conjure another one, the oldest disappears. Tricky in such a small space but manageable."
"Oh, so you will keep your distance? How is that different from before?"
"This way." Suddenly two fish appeared, completely made out of bones.
"So you think your Nen Beasts will finish me off? Sure, with many specific conditions, they can be unkillable until that condition is fulfilled. But I don't need to kill them."
As the fish approached him, Harry stretched his hand out, and blackish-purple miasma spread out of it, encompassing the two fish before they vanished.
"That is quite different from teleportation knives." Chrollo mused as a blanket appeared in his hand, having changed the pages before he ran towards Harry.
As he threw the blanket at Harry, it also got absorbed by that blackish-purple miasma.
"Sorry, Nen abilities don't really work on me. As long as they leave your body's aura, I can absorb them. My weaknesses are pretty much strong enhancers." Harry grinned unimpressed.
"Let me guess. Telling me your weakness is another condition of your ability?" Chrollo said as something exploded on the outside.
The Phantom Troupe had begun their attack on the Mafia to mourn Uvogin. They were going to completely unleash Hell.
"It seems your friends already started with their show! Are you sure you have the time to play with me?" Harry asked as he appeared beside Chrollo again punching him against a wall, "And no. Eight Knifes isn't my limit. I can hide them too. That was just In."
Chrollo stared at him. "Your presence is out of my calculations. Who are you?"
"Well, I am here to get the Nen ability of my client back. That's the job I was hired for. To protect her during the Yorknew Auction. By stealing her ability, you forced me to act against you." Harry replied calmly, "So the answer is a bodyguard."
"A Bodyguard. You are from the Nostrade family. Do you know a Chain User?"
"Hmm, I do. But I won't share anything about him. That's between you and him. Will the Ability return if you die?" Harry continued with a polite smile.
"Between me and him?" Chrollo just looked at him, "I see. Yes, it would return. But we can come to a different agreement, I believe."