Omokage sat in silence inside the church, waiting.
He knew Ronin would show up. No doubt about it.
He had placed the bait right out in the open. As long as Ronin followed the trail left by the Nobunaga puppet, he would inevitably be led right here to this church.
And once he arrived, the Pairo puppet would be Ronin's death warrant.
From what Omokage had gathered from Uvogin, Ronin was the type who would jump feet first into a trap if it involved the Scarlet Eyes—even if he knew it was a setup. And considering he was a Kurta survivor himself? It was a guarantee.
The only thing that genuinely puzzled Omokage was how Ronin had managed to take off the Nobunaga puppet's head so quickly.
It must have happened in a split second. From the moment the puppet was attacked to the moment its head vanished, the other puppets hiding nearby hadn't transmitted a single piece of useful intel.
If only he could find the puppet's head, even without the eyes, it would tell him something. But according to his sensory link, when his retrieval puppets arrived at the scene, all they found was a patch of scorched earth.
Clearly, after snatching the eyes, Ronin had incinerated the head on the spot.
His phone buzzed with a text.
It was from Isley. The other members were already en route to Moerdin City.
This operation wasn't just the crew that had been fooling around with Uvogin earlier. The Chieftain, Chrollo, was coming. So was Pakunoda, who always hovered around him, and Isley, the Troupe's number 8.
That meant in two days, there would be eight Troupe members in the city. No, scratch that—seven capable members, if you excluded Uvogin, who was basically useless right now, writhing in pain from his burns. Seven Spiders to hunt down Ronin.
Omokage frowned slightly. Ronin, you better not disappoint me.
---
Less than half a mile from the church, a car was parked on the side of the road. Ronin didn't get out. Instead, he pulled out a crystal ball and activated the Telescope Jutsu.
Focusing on the faint trace of Nen he sensed from Omokage, he poured his Chakra into the ball. The image swirled and stabilized, panning toward the church.
When the view of the church appeared in the glass, the young boy sitting on the steeple came into sharp focus.
"Pairo!" Kurapika recognized him instantly.
That was his best friend. The partner he would have given his life for.
Kurapika never expected to see him again, let alone sitting there, looking completely unharmed atop a church.
His mind went blank. Kurapika shoved the car door open, ready to sprint straight for the building.
That was Pairo!
But he barely made it a few steps before a hand grabbed him and yanked him back.
"Kurapika, get a grip! Pairo is dead. I saw it with my own eyes. The Phantom Troupe cut off his head!" Ronin shouted, forcing the brutal reality onto him.
"But..." Kurapika's eyes turned a vivid, glowing scarlet.
He tried to argue, but the tears betrayed him, streaming down his face before he could get the words out. He collapsed into a crouch.
Deep down, he knew. The thing on the roof wasn't Pairo.
It was a puppet Omokage had created in Pairo's image. The only difference was that Omokage had installed real Scarlet Eyes into it.
Damn them!
Thud!
Kurapika slammed his fist into the pavement. Blood splattered on the concrete, but he didn't seem to feel the pain. When he looked up at Ronin, his eyes were filled with nothing but a desperate plea.
Ronin sighed and patted Kurapika on the shoulder. "Leave it to me. I got this."
Back inside the car, Ronin reactivated the Telescope Jutsu. The image shifted away from the bait on the roof and peered inside the building.
Omokage's face appeared clearly in the crystal ball.
He had no idea he was being watched remotely and was busy crafting another puppet.
Ronin pulled the perspective back. Following his sensory perception of the Nen signatures, he spotted puppets hiding all over the church. They all popped up in the crystal ball, one by one.
The Third Hokage's surveillance jutsu was even handier than Ronin had anticipated.
"Ideally, we need to force him out of the church," Ronin muttered.
Counting the puppets, Kurapika realized how bad the situation was.
Ronin felt the same way. Omokage had prepped over twenty puppets inside that building. Many of them wore faces Ronin recognized.
Machi, Uvogin, Phinks, Franklin... it was practically a Phantom Troupe reunion in there.
Even if these fakes couldn't output half the combat power of the originals, Omokage still had that annoying ability to merge them.
However, since they were all packed inside the church, Ronin had the perfect Ninjutsu combination in mind.
He stopped scrying and put the ball away. He took a moment to center himself, and once his Chakra flow was optimal, he crossed his fingers in a cross shape.
Shadow Clone Jutsu.
A duplicate appeared. Ronin then entered a state of Zetsu to speed up his recovery.
When he opened his eyes again, he and his clone began stealthily moving toward the church.
He left the car behind with a worried Kurapika and Neon, who was blissfully unaware of the danger and probably just thinking about her next meal.
The B-Rank Earth Style: Light-Weight Rock Jutsu wasn't enough to make a person fly, but the A-Rank version—Super Light-Weight Rock Jutsu, improved by the Tsuchikage Ohnoki—could allow for flight.
Ronin had tried it before, but the chakra consumption was massive. It wasn't suitable for the fight ahead.
Besides, with Omokage consolidating his forces inside, the perimeter defense was surprisingly thin.
About a hundred yards from the church, Ronin stopped and leaped into a tall tree. His Shadow Clone mirrored the move nearby.
They weren't far apart. Connected by a shared consciousness, they began weaving hand signs simultaneously.
The main body moved slightly faster, weaving a complex sequence of 44 signs to maximize the jutsu's power.
For this move, Ronin chose Earth Style: Clayfall.
As a massive amount of Chakra gathered and the final sign was formed, a rift seemed to open in the space directly above the church.
A massive deluge of sticky clay poured down from the sky.
The Pairo puppet, standing conspicuously on the roof, was the first to get hit. But Ronin didn't care.
Because at the exact moment the clay blanketed the entire main structure of the church, the Shadow Clone unleashed the second part of the combo.
A small fireball shot from the clone's mouth, slamming into the ground right in front of the church.
Boom!
A split second later, the condensed Chakra detonated. That tiny fireball expanded instantly into a roaring inferno. The flames spread explosively, engulfing the entire front of the building.
Fire Style: Searing Migraine.
The clay cascading from above met the intense heat rising from below. Under the roasting flames, the clay rapidly hardened and solidified. The combination of extreme heat and the heavy, falling clay caused the church to echo with the sounds of cracking and popping.
Silhouettes leaped from the upper windows of the church—the puppets trying to escape.
But the moment they burst through the windows, they were coated in the falling clay and immediately baked by the fire below. By the time they hit the ground, they had turned into brittle ceramic statues, shattering into pieces on impact.