"I won't hold back." Botobai's voice hummed; two streams of breath jetted from his nostrils like twin dragons.
Roy leaned on his cane-blade, calm. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
"Good." The Dragon wasted no more words—turned, and strode down the service corridor. "Follow me."
"Master…" Gotoh and Kuraging looked to him.
"Gaa—oh." Roy patted the golden crow on his head. "You two wait here."
He turned, blade in hand, and followed.
Two figures—one large, one small—slipped into the passage and vanished. Cameras studding the corridor walls caught their backs, relayed them onward. One duck-billed operator with a slick face thumbed his phone and, when no one was watching, tapped out a text: It's begun.
Spanto, Kakin's capital.
At the north end of Tulip Boulevard, just off the throne hall the Hui-Guo-Rou clan controlled, inside a palatial manor, an old man and a youth—one standing, one sitting—worked in silence.
With a telescope at the floor-to-ceiling window, Beyond watched Black Whale's ribs rise. He broke the quiet. "A few days now. Have you figured out why you lost?"
Pariston, legs crossed, flipped through Draconidae: A Field Record written by a "Dragon-Chaser," answering without looking up: "What else? Insufficient strength. Inadequate intel."
If you can't beat him, you lack strength. If you don't know him, you lack intel.
He'd replayed it. He could have avoided crossing Roy; at the airport he'd even yielded—yet the "monkey" drew him into the boy's storm anyway. An accident—one that cost him two bodyguards and a "piece"—only to prove the opponent's immense play value.
He thought of that cool face—itch climbing his spine—and had to choke down the thrill.
Beyond glanced back. "You're missing a piece."
Pariston snapped the book shut, tossed it on the desk, laced his fingers behind his head, one brow arched: Go on.
A soft buzz in Beyond's pocket. He checked the screen, then told staff to power the wall TV. The picture popped: Roy and Botobai sprinting in a corridor.
"You lacked preparations," Beyond said, eyes on the black-haired boy. "Humans die when they're killed… and no matter how strong your foe, enough prep lets you kill him in one blow."
"What about Chairman Netero?" Pariston asked, plainly knowing more than most.
"Same." The man's laugh was sandpaper-soft. "Roy Zoldyck's a fine opponent. Watch closely. Gather his data. I expect the day you kill him."
Zoldycks… kill their boy and they'll go rabid. Beyond's glance slid to Pariston. Cornered, the child would have nowhere to run but the Black Whale.
"Heh-heh—of course." Pariston's pupils pulsed as he studied the feed. Revenge wasn't the point. The point was to take the boy's treasures apart, piece by piece, to watch him rage and hate—while he, Pariston, smiled… and waltzed. As for a partner?
He'd just borrow the boy's sweetheart.
Two sets of footfalls thudded from the speakers, echoing in the lavish room.
Below.
Roy ghosted after Botobai at a steady Silent Gait cadence—fast when the officer was fast, slow when he slowed—until daylight bled ahead.
Then Botobai lobbed a smoke canister into the floor. His voice rode the white-out like a drumbeat: "This stage is simple: War Game – Milsy Maneuvers. Find me before sunset. Pass if you do."
Smoke filled the mouth of the tunnel. Roy stopped; the golden crow yawned a flame. Fire rolled, pushing the veil back to daylight.
"Nice beast," Beyond said, clocking the pudgy golden bird on the boy's head.
Pariston frowned. He didn't recall a "pet." So—besides Magnetism and Sword—Roy had a beast as well?
Onscreen, the crow burped smoke and the day brightened. Roy palmed his cane-blade, stepped into the open—
—and into machine-gun hail.
Bratatat—
Live rounds, timed to the instant he breached, raked down harder than Gotoh's barrages ever had. The tunnel cam swung wide: trenches fan-parallel across a killing field; camo-faced "soldiers" dug in the treeline and marsh, some on MGs, some on SMGs, all scything fire.
Had you dropped in cold, you'd think you'd stumbled into a war, the entire unit set to kill you.
"One man, one army," Netero slurped udon at the grill by the entrance. "Hoh-hoh… Batobai is a whole battalion on his own."
Strength-types weren't just "four limbs, simple brain"—they were also bottomless pits at the table. Zeno matched him bite for bite. With the curse news still bitter on the tongue, the old man ate to steady himself, then waved for more beef, eyes never leaving Roy.
If "One-Man Army" was Botobai's Nen, to field and fire so many at once meant—Emitter or Controller.
Now we see how Roy answers.
Bullets were Nen-sheathed—unlike the garbage lobbed at Uvogin by Ten Dons' goons. A soldier hefted an RPG and fired straight at Roy.
The boy smiled.
Guns and shells were sacks of powder wrapped in iron. And iron?
Iron obeyed magnetism.
He didn't even draw. His off-hand pushed the air—Magnetism: Repulse—and a transparent "field-wall" snapped outward. Bullets froze in it, the rocket, too—then all whipped back.
Whizz… whizz… whump—
The RPG returned to sender and vaporized the poor lieutenant.
[Notice: Life Energy +1… +1… +1… +5… +1…]
As trenches and reeds emptied, the HUD pinged again and again; a translucent shade rose from each fallen "trooper"—tallest of all the RPG man—and flowed into Roy.
Souls Botobai once saved from terrorists, Roy guessed. No time to absorb; shield up, he walked the storm.
"Transparent shield? Air wall? Something that bounces bullets…" Beyond mused. "Not bad."
"Not air—magnetism," Pariston said, heartbeat quickening. "You saw only the push. There's also…"
"…pull."
On cue, Roy dropped into a trench, reached out—and dragged a soldier to his hand. A twist—neck snapped. [Life Energy +1] Shade rose, sank into him.
One. Two. Three. Eight. Ten… In minutes the killing field was harvest.
"Enough!" The shout cut him mid-grab.
Botobai stepped from a copse, face storm-dark behind the mask. "Another second and my children are gone!"
He strode once, seized Roy's wrist—and his heart turned to ice. He looked down.
The cane-blade he'd ignored had slipped from its sheath sometime, and now speared him clean through the chest.
A scream—white in, red out. In Spanto, Pariston's brows ticked—bold boy, to stab a proctor during a test, under the Association's nose. That was disqualification at best… and yet very Zoldyck.
"Try not to get ahead of yourself," Beyond said, unbothered. "Botobai doesn't die so easily."
Onscreen, the "Dragon" stared, stunned—because what proctor expected a candidate to aim for his heart? The rules said: kill a proctor and you're expelled. Does this child not care for a license?
The blade withdrew. The body swayed, fell.
And a cool voice: "A monkey is still a monkey. Mimic a trick or two and you fancy yourself a man?"
"You—" "Botobai" choked—and died. The corpse unraveled into its true form: a Man-Faced Ape—the same beast that once pretended to be Examiner Satotsu.
[Notice: Life Energy +2… Bestiary Updated]
[Man-Faced Ape]
[Class: E]
[Racial Gift: "Fraud" (Can mimic human form from observation to deceive)]
[Revealed Nen: 10/100 | Potential: 25/100]
[Gift Shard "Fraud" acquired. Count: 1/5]
[Note: Collect 5 shards to unlock "Fraud" (unique). Extras void.]
Loot, hm?
Roy flicked the HUD. As "Recognition Gate" deepened, the panel itself was evolving—mapping, extracting properties, scaling with his Nen. Once, he could never have "read" a beast and split off its essence; now he could—and the count even scaled to his output.
So: four more shards of Fraud. From whom?
Twin suns lit his eyes. He stared into the brush.
Chittering panic—and several more apes bolted, hopes of a free feast gone. They fled into Milsy's wetland—only to be yanked down, necks severed one by one.
[Life +2… Gift Shard "Fraud" acquired…]
One… two… three… four—five shards, under three minutes. The panel flashed; a ribbon of data poured into his mind.
Roy stood amid monkey corpses and Botobai's fallen "soldiers," eyes shut to feel the upload—and with a thought unlocked Fraud. His body rose ten centimeters; cane vanished; clothes, shoes, even the gold-rimmed glasses—everything shifted.
He now wore Gotoh's face.
At the grill by the gate, the wetland's control node, and all the way in Spanto—Beyond, Pariston, Netero, Zeno—every viewer stared.
~~~
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