Jaku and the two crows perched on the windowsill, pecking frantically at the birdseed Liam had finally remembered to give them. Inside the hotel room, Liam and Shizuku stood motionless, wrapped in Ken like statues carved from solidified air pressure.
A timer sat on the table nearby, numbers ticking forward with mechanical precision.
Every second that passed drained one point of aura from each of them. That was the cost of Ken. Maximum output, held continuously. The more aura you had, the harder it became to maintain. Like trying to hold back a dam that kept filling with more water.
Beginners burned through their aura faster, losing extra to poor technique. But anyone competent lost exactly one point per second. It was the universal constant of Nen training.
At the one-hour mark, Liam's Ken flickered. The bubble of aura around him contracted slightly, pulling tighter against his skin.
One hour and twenty minutes. Another flicker. The edges wavered, growing unstable.
One hour, forty-five minutes, fifty seconds.
Liam's Ken shattered. He dropped to his knees, gasping, sweat pouring down his face. The aura around him snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
6,350 aura total.
He collapsed onto his back, chest heaving.
Shizuku held on.
Seventeen minutes and seventeen seconds later, her Ken finally gave out. She crumpled to the floor beside him, glasses askew, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
7,387 aura total.
They lay there for a minute, staring at the ceiling, too exhausted to speak.
Jaku hopped over with a towel in his beak. Liam took it and tossed the second one to Shizuku.
"Is this really the only way to increase total aura?" Shizuku asked, wiping her face.
Liam draped the towel over his head. "It's the only method I know."
Which was true. The manga never showed any shortcuts. Bisky, who was a grandmaster of Shingen-ryu, had trained Gon and Killua using this exact method. If there was a better way, she would've used it.
So yeah. This was it. The grind.
Shizuku sat up slowly, tilting her head. "What if we just used our Hatsu abilities until we ran out of aura? Wouldn't that be faster?"
Liam paused, towel still on his head.
That was actually a good question.
If burning through aura was the goal, why not just spam abilities? Gon's Jajanken used thousands of aura per shot. A few Rock-Paper-Scissors blasts would empty his tank completely. Way faster than holding Ken for hours.
But Bisky hadn't done that. She'd made them grind Ken instead.
There had to be a reason.
"Let's test it," Liam said, pulling the towel off his face. "Not here, though. We need open space. A park or something. Tonight."
"Okay."
Without Menchi's green seasoning, recovery took forever. They'd need at least half an hour of rest between rounds. And each round of Ken took close to two hours to complete.
Normal people needed a full month of daily training just to extend their Ken by ten minutes. That was 600 aura worth of growth. One month for 600 aura.
Of course, normal people also had jobs. Families. Sleep schedules. Limited time and energy.
Liam and Shizuku didn't have those problems. They could just grind until they passed out.
By the time evening rolled around, Liam's record had improved to one hour and forty-eight minutes. 6,480 aura.
Shizuku hit two hours, four minutes, fifty seconds. 7,490 aura.
They showered, changed into clean clothes, and grabbed dinner at a nearby restaurant. Then Liam pulled up a map on his phone and navigated to the closest park.
The terrorist attack that morning must've spooked people. The park was nearly deserted, just a few joggers and one old man walking his dog.
Perfect.
They found an empty stretch of grass far from the main paths. Liam released the birds to keep watch, then turned to Shizuku.
"Blinky doesn't use much aura, right?"
Shizuku nodded. "And I don't have any other abilities."
"So you're just lazy."
She smiled. Maybe. It was hard to tell with Shizuku.
Liam cracked his knuckles and raised both hands, fingers pointing.
Time to science this.
Nen could be divided into three categories: Total Aura, Potential Aura, and Aura Output.
Total aura was simple. It was the full tank. The maximum amount of aura your body could hold.
Potential aura was everything you couldn't release at once. The reserve fuel.
Aura output, also called AOP, was the flow rate. The amount of aura you could push through your pores in a single instant. Your Ken output.
Most beginners, like early Gon, could only output about one-twelfth of their total aura at once. Liam had trained his output up to one-tenth, and it felt like a hard cap. His body couldn't push any faster.
With 6,480 total aura, that meant his maximum output was 648 aura.
Hatsu abilities, though? Hatsu abilities broke the rules.
That's what made them special.
When Liam developed Spirit Gun, he'd imposed restrictions to boost its output beyond his natural AOP limit. The spirit-gun started at 700 aura the instant he began charging. That was already past his normal ceiling.
And it climbed by 100 aura every second he held the charge.
900 aura. 1,000 aura. 1,100.
Thirteen seconds. He held the charge for thirteen full seconds.
Both hands glowed with condensed energy. Two bullets, each packing 2,000 aura of raw destructive force.
Of course, he was a Manipulator. Emission was only 80% efficient for him.
So the actual damage output was 1,600 aura per shot.
Still terrifying.
Think about it in reverse. If Liam's spirit-gun could punch through an enemy's Ken, that enemy would need at least 1,600 aura in their defense. And if they had 1,600 aura in Ken, they probably had at least 16,000 total aura. Maybe more, depending on their Nen type.
Liam's total aura was barely over 6,000. But with his Hatsu, he could threaten someone with three times his power level.
And that was just his Emission technique. If he got a Star Mark on someone, they were finished. Didn't matter if they had 20,000 aura or 200,000. Once the mark landed, it was over.
That was the point of Hatsu. The great equalizer.
Morel, one of the Hunter Association's top combatants, had around 70,000 total aura. That was high-tier. Elite. But even Morel had to be careful. In the Chimera Ant arc, he'd admitted that a serious Rock from Gon, who'd trained for a single month, carried enough killing intent to make him nervous.
If Morel had underestimated that kid and let him charge up, he could've been seriously injured.
Everyone was a glass cannon in this world. It didn't matter how much aura you had. One good hit from the right ability, and you were done.
That's why tactics mattered. Why team coordination mattered. Why you never, ever underestimated your opponent, no matter how weak they seemed.
SNAP. SNAP.
Liam fired both bullets into the empty sky.
The twin blasts tore through the air, leaving glowing trails before dissipating harmlessly over the treetops.
He fired again. And again. Rapid-fire shots, each one burning through hundreds of aura in seconds.
In less than thirty seconds, his entire reserve was gone.
Liam collapsed onto the grass, arms spread wide, chest heaving. "Now we wait. See if my Ken time improves."
They sat in silence. Crickets chirped. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.
Half an hour later, Liam tried Ken again.
It lasted the exact same amount of time as before.
"Well." He let his aura dissipate and flopped back onto the grass. "That answers that. No shortcuts. Just grind Ken like everyone else."
Shizuku lay down beside him, staring up at the sky. "So we spent two hours listening to mosquitoes for nothing."
"Pretty much."
The moon drifted between clouds. The birds circled lazily overhead.
Eventually, Shizuku stood and offered Liam her hand. He took it, letting her pull him upright.
They walked back to the hotel in comfortable silence, two figures moving through the quiet streets, followed by three birds and the ghost of wasted time.
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