"Match start!" the referee shouted.
Hisoka didn't move right away. He watched Satoru like he was studying a toy he wanted to break. "I've been watching you for a long time."
"During the daylight, I hope," Satoru said, keeping his hands loose at his sides and his shoulders relaxed.
Hisoka chuckled. "Originally, my next opponent was already decided. But you managed to beat everyone in under a minute. I couldn't ignore that. So, when that woman came to me, I just couldn't resist."
Satoru didn't wait for Hisoka's yapping and flickered to the side, throwing a punch toward Hisoka's jaw. Hisoka leaned back, but the fist still grazed his cheek and snapped his head slightly. A thin cut opened, and a bead of blood rolled down. Hisoka's grin widened as if he'd been rewarded.
"Good," Hisoka murmured, as three cards appeared in his hands. He flicked them like darts.
Satoru shifted his weight and blocked the cards with Ren. Hisoka tried striking with his palm, but Satoru caught his wrist and twisted, trying to break his balance. However, the moment he pulled, he felt something was off. The wrist didn't move like it should; it resisted, then tugged back.
A quick look with Gyo allowed him to see a sticky strand of aura stretched between them. "Pretty decent Hatsu," Satoru praised without worry. "Bungee Gum."
Satoru's arm jerked forward, and Hisoka used the pull to deliver a short punch into Satoru's ribs. Satoru used his free hand to absorb the punch, but he still got pushed back two steps.
"He'd make a great Taijutsu fighter," Satoru evaluated Hisoka's strength as the fight continued. He wasn't in a hurry to end the fight and sought to understand the strength of an expert Nen user.
Above Chunin, but not at the Jonin level – that was his evaluation after a few minutes. Of course, Satoru knew Hisoka wasn't trying his absolute best, but he still thought his estimate wasn't far off the mark.
Satoru dodged another strand of Bungee Gum and jumped back. "Alright, the warm-ups end here."
"Oh, are you finally getting serious?" Hisoka stopped his attacks and watched with interest, wanting to see what kind of Hatsu this "fresh apple" created.
"So confident," Satoru smiled and started walking toward Hisoka, each step leaving a special mark on the floor.
Hisoka's eyes narrowed with Gyo, and he quickly noticed the arena was filled with similar marks. "Since when did you start using Hatsu?"
He was absorbed in the fun fight and didn't bother to use Gyo, missing the marks. "Who gave you the illusion that I wasn't using Hatsu from the start?" Satoru vanished.
Hisoka reacted instantly, turning with a punch already chambered, but Satoru wasn't behind him. He appeared above, dropping with a heel strike. Hisoka raised his arms to block, yet the strike didn't land.
A dark portal opened between them. Satoru's heel sank into it and came out from another portal near Hisoka's side, smashing into his ribs at an angle Hisoka didn't expect.
Hisoka slid back into a new portal and suddenly found himself standing in a forest. He froze for a few seconds before bursting out laughing. "I got completely played."
He already knew he had lost the match, but he wasn't angry. Instead, he was excited to find a new prey – a prey he rated to be on the same level as Chrollo.
"And that woman, Tsunade," he thought of Satoru's partner. Even though he didn't feel any Nen from her, he didn't think she hadn't learned it; he just thought she was good at concealing it.
"Hunting these two would be as good as fighting the spiders," he said, hugging his body and twisting with a lewd expression on his face.
Meanwhile, everything was silent back in the arena. Most of the audience who didn't know Nen and couldn't use Gyo only saw Hisoka vanish; they couldn't see how or where.
At first, they thought it was just another show of his, but after the referee started counting, they panicked – well, most of those who bet on Hisoka did.
A stream of yelling and curses filled the arena, but Satoru ignored all the noise and waited for the countdown with his hands in his pockets.
"The winner by disqualification is... Satoru!" the referee finally announced. He didn't seem flustered like the audience, probably already knowing about Nen.
"What just happened, people? Did Hisoka abandon the fight and run away? Did Satoru finally strike the fear into the crazy magician?"
Satoru's lips twitched at the announcer's attempt to hype the fight. What a dedicated worker – he didn't even fear Hisoka would retaliate against the insult he was spouting.
"So, how was the fight? Did you enjoy it?"
Satoru met Tsunade at the betting stand and noticed her cheerful mood. She must have made a killing.
"Honestly, it was a little disappointing," Satoru said. It wasn't that he didn't want to continue the fight, but he just found Hisoka not an ideal opponent.
A close combat fighter with no destructive abilities like him was no match for Satoru. So, he wasn't enough to test Satoru's abilities fully.
"So, we're leaving right?" Tsunade asked hopefully.
"Yeah," Satoru nodded. "Let's go to York."