Speed Hunter Chaper 1

The Speed Hunter Ryozha slammed the hotel phone back onto the hook, cracking the tough plastic casing and swearing angrily. “Jerks! Why can’t they even answer a simple question? Bah!” He spun the chair around and sat moodily in it. All my other leads have petered out. He thought to himself, “Bad Genkopf is almost definitely where the ring is”. * Sigh* “I’ve fought off forty-foot monsters; I’ve crossed impassable mountain ranges and forded rivers most people can’t even get near. I’ve crossed the ocean on foot, for crying out loud! So why can’t I get information out of one witch-like old woman or her servants?” Ryozha sighed again, this time out loud, and muttered “Maybe it’ll be better if I sleep on it. I’ve been trying to get at that old woman to ask a question for three days now, and I’m no closer than when I started.” He shrugged, spun out of the chair, and jogged into the bedroom of his small suite. There, he tumbled into bed without even bothering to change, falling almost instantly into a restless doze. Just as he was starting to fall into a proper sleep, the telephone rang abruptly. In a single, blurred motion, Ryozha was at the phone, reflexively ripping it loose and spinning to send it flying against the far wall, before his eyes were even all the way open. He then stared groggily at the resulting tangle of metal and plastic shards, scrubbing his hand through his short, spiky brown hair in irritation. Shrugging, he called the hotel desk on his cellphone. “Um... did someone just try to call my room?” “Yes, little bo... er, Hunter Ryozha.” the desk clerk answered. Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper “It was a policeman! He’s still waiting on the switchboard. Should I tell him you’ve run away?” “No!” Ryozha snapped. “Look, can you just put the call through to my cell? I had... er, an accident with the room phone.” “Yes, yes,” the switchboard operator said, “no need to get so upset at me!” With a brief rattle of switches and an electronic hum, an impatient male voice erupted on the line. “HELLO? Oh, there is someone here. I’m SO glad.” the detective snarled sarcastically. “Yes, officer.” Ryozha said patiently. “Is there something I can do for you?” “Listen, kid,” the detective started, and then paused. “Is your father or guardian there? We have some questions for whoever’s been using this phone to call Ms. Shelling.” “Just me, I’m afraid.” Ryozha replied. “I’ve been calling Ms. Shelling regarding a piece of jewelry that is the partial objective for my current hunt. Is something wrong?” “Your hunt.” the detective stated flatly. “You’re trying to tell me you’re...” “Look,” Ryozha interrupted, “maybe it would be simpler if I simply met with you face to face. You’re at the Spinsterhood, right?” “We are at the former residence of Ms. Shelling, yes, but... oh, what the @#$!. I’ll send a car to pick you up.” the detective grumped. “No need,” answered Ryozha. “I’m standing behind you.” The detective whirled, staring with mingled shock and disbelief at the Hunter who had so suddenly appeared behind him. “B...B...But... the hotel I reached you at is on the far side of town! How?” Ryozha ignored the question and handed the detective his Hunter License. The Detective, Lieutenant Renee Gromoff by his badge, calmed down somewhat and took it. He looked it over thoroughly, and then dubiously looked the boy who had handed it to him up and down. Ryozha rolled his eyes. In the nearly two years he’d already been hunting, he’d gotten used to this reaction. He knew what Lieutenant Gromoff was seeing, a slender boy with short brown hair and gray-blue eyes in his early teens, looking more or less like he’d just woken up. He was feeling almost as dubious about the Lieutenant, but thought he was hiding it a bit better. Gromoff was a short, barely taller than Ryozha, broad man with a red face and haircut so short that it’s color was hard to determine. He also, unfortunately, affected a trench coat that made him look like a fireplug wrapped in canvas. Gromoff finally handed Ryozha’s card back to him, grunting “You may be a Hunter, alright, kid. But Bad Genkopf is my turf, and this is my case.” Ryozha gave a kind of half shrug and said “Whatever. What happened?” Detective Gromoff glared at him and gave a kind of inarticulate growling noise, turning even redder. Ryozha watched him impassively, idly contemplating dragging him across town and dumping him in the central fountain, eight miles away. “I figure I could probably get him there in about half a second or so...” he thought,

allowing himself a small smirk. Seeing the smirk, the detective almost visibly grabbed onto his self-control and calmed somewhat, refusing to let a ‘mere child’ get a rise out of him. “Lady Shelling was assassinated less than half an hour ago. Her lady-in-waiting heard an odd noise just as she left the room after delivering Ms. Shelling’s evening tea. She pushed the door back open, and found her ladyship dead in the chair she had been sitting in when the lady-in-waiting came in. Our only clue is the murder weapon itself, a strange kind of pin with a spherical head, it looks a bit like what the local freaks use for body piercing. It was stuck in her throat, and, although she may have slumped as she died, from the angle it may have been thrown through the window. And I know the ring you’re talking about, she usually wore it when she came down to the station to complain at me about her neighbors. You can get a list of her effects once the lab boys have finished cataloguing everything, but it didn’t look like she was wearing it when I took a look at the crime scene. Looks like your hunt has come to a premature halt, kid.” Ryozha looked levelly at the detective for a moment, then, deciding he could get nothing further useful from the man, nodded to him and slouched off down the street. A short time later, he was leaning on a streetlight in the business district of Bad Genkopf, turning over what to do next in his mind. As he mused, a snatch of conversation caught his attention. “... But your father certainly is strange.” “Yes, but isn’t he interesting? Jin is one of the greatest hunters in the world.” Ryozha’s head snapped around. “Jin?” he mumbled. He looked around until he picked out the speakers; they were two boys, about his own age or a little younger. One had pale blue hair and green eyes slit like a cat’s, and moved with the wary grace of a predator. Ryozha was certain that the other boy had even noticed his sudden interest, despite the fact that he was hiding his presence. The second boy had spiky, almost greenish hair, big brown eyes and looked... well, familiar. A lot like a certain famous Hunter friend of Ryozha’s grandfather, in fact. His interest piqued, Ryozha hopped down off the concrete base of the streetlight and walked across the street. He was careful to move at a more normal pace than his usual blurred rush, not wanting to startle the other boys into a confrontation. Once he had closed the distance a little, he called to them. “Excuse me...” he started, “but are you Gon Freaks?” The other two turned to him, and the boy with the spiky hair smiled, nodding and saying, “Yeah, I’m Gon, and this is Kailua. Who are you?” The boy who Gon had identified as Kailua looked sideways at Ryozha, and added “And how do you know who Gon is, if he doesn’t know you?” Ryozha gave them both a lopsided smile. “Actually, the answer to... Gon said your name was Kailua, right? Kailua’s question is part of my answer to Gon’s question. My name is Ryozha; my Grandfather runs a Nen training school in the Bulimia Prefecture, in the north country, Quanta, to be exact. He knows Jin well, and Jin sometimes visits the school. And it seemed, that every time he visited, when he saw me, he would talk about Gon, since we’re close to the same age. He always seemed to regret having left you with his cousin, but at the same time, he didn’t know how he could hunt with a child following him. What Kailua said earlier is true; Jin is a bit of a strange one.” Kailua gave a little half-snort, half-laugh and nodded, apparently satisfied, while Gon’s eyes went wide. “Wow,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “you know Jin better than I do... that’s kind of weird.” “Well,” Ryozha commented, his eyes twinkling, “no-one ever accused Jin of being ordinary. But what are you guys doing here? Bad Genkopf is a long way from Whale Island.” Gon explained that the two of them were Pro Hunters, in Bad Genkopf searching for a lost Faberge Egg rumored to be in the area; it was more of a ‘fun’ hunt than anything serious. “But what are you doing here, Ryozha?” asked Gon. “Well...” Ryozha hesitated, and then shrugged. “I’m on a hunt for a key.” Kailua blinked, and looked a little skeptical, but before he could say anything, Gon said excitedly “A key? What to?” Ryozha glanced around. He didn’t see anyone, but something was making him uneasy. He could tell that Kailua, while outwardly relaxed, could sense something too. “Let’s walk around, and I’ll tell you.” Ryozha said, motioning for the other two to follow him. He set off, but tension made his

control slip slightly, and he found himself moving at his normal pace, leaving the other two far behind. As soon as he noticed, he raced back to the other two, who had stumbled to a stop once he vanished from sight. He tried to hurry them along, feeling hostile presences closing in, but even Kailua seemed stunned by the speed he had suddenly displayed. “How did you do that?” Gon asked. “Look, it’s just part of my Nen. Come on!” Ryozha urged. “Too late.” smirked a voice from behind them. Several large figures separated themselves from the shadows, surrounding the three boys. “Alright, kids. Hand over your hunter licenses if you want to live.” Kailua snorted contemptuously. “Yeah, right. Like you’re going to let us live once you have the licenses. If you’re going to lie, you should at least learn to do it more convincingly than that.” He paused, and smirked. “New deal. Run away now if YOU want to live.” The thug leader growled, and he was suddenly surrounded by the glow of a Nen aura. His cronies followed suit, advancing menacingly on the boys. Ryozha pulled out his jointed staff, and noticed Kailua producing two yo-yos. Gon simply shouted “First comes Rock! Rock, paper, scissors... ROCK!” while cocking his fist and charging the thug nearest him. There was a thunderous crash, a flare of Nen, and the thug was hurled away in what Ryozha judged to be a nearly flat trajectory, about sixty feet up and still rising when he passed out of sight. The other five thugs paused at that, and Ryozha struck without warning, hitting his target thirty-eight times before he had time to blink, and hitting him a further twenty-nine before he hit the ground, just for good measure. Kailua, meanwhile, went straight for the gang’s leader, striking him with a flying kick, followed by a yo-yo cross up that laid him out right there. Amazingly, he struggled up onto one elbow, spat blood and shouted, “Your weapons, you fools! Use your... ungh...” folding up as Kailua shocked him unconscious. The remaining three thugs started, shaking themselves loose from the shock of seeing three young boys demolishing a trio of full-grown fighters, and produced a variety of weaponry- one a gun, one a pair of short-handled scythes, and the last a Billy club. All handled their weapons with the assurance brought by long experience; Ryozha, Kailua and Gon glanced at one another. Then Gon and Kailua looked at each other, obviously uncertain, since they didn’t know Ryozha. Ryozha hesitated also, but the matter was settled when the man with the scythes went straight for him. Kailua got the gunner after him, and Gon wound up facing the club-wielding man. Ryozha swung his staff at the scythe-wielder, but kept half an eye on Kailua’s opponent, unsure if he should have gone after the gunman. The next few seconds cured him of that; the scythe-thug’s hands blurred, and Ryozha nearly lost his head. He focused in, blocked a half-dozen strikes in as many microseconds, and then backpedaled, Ryozha style, ending up on the far side of the street in the blink of an eye. Then he favored his opponent with a half-smile, pulling his headphones up from around his neck and putting them on. The scythe-wielder paused, obviously wary of some kind of new attack, but Ryozha simply grinned and hit play. Back on the other side of the street, Kailua was dodging bullets. The gunman sneered at him. “These are Nen bullets, little boy. You can dodge as long as you like; I’m not going to run out of ammo, but you’re eventually going to get tire...ungh.” “You’re not going to run out of ammo, but you are going to take your eyes off me long enough to mock me.” Kailua commented from behind him. The gunman whirled, yelling “Fiery Pistol Whip!” as his suddenly blazing pistol whipped ‘round, trying to catch Kailua in the head with it. Kailua darted backwards, stopping a few feet away and slapping out his smoldering shirt. “Huh. Seems I’ve underestimated you.” he said. The gunman snarled and started forward, firing as he came and trying to force Kailua up against a wall or lamppost. Meanwhile, a short distance away, Gon and his opponent were shattering windows twenty feet away with shockwaves as they hammered on one another. “So...” Gon began, “You’re... a... reinforcement user... too, eh?” The two separated a bit, and both paused for breath. “But why’d... you... guys... erg... put so much of your Nen... in your weapons?” Gon asked. “Simple...” his opponent gasped, “they’re... more powerful... this way, and so are we... since we wield them.”

“Oh!” Gon exclaimed. “I understand... kind of.” He looked at the club wielder. “Ready to keep going?” “AAAARGH!” screamed the club wielder in response as he closed the distance between them in a split second, bringing his Billy club in low and hard. About a hundred miles away and 10,000 feet above, the occupant of a small private airship was turning a ring set with a strangely cut stone over and over. Every so often he would push Nen into it, resulting in an amorphous flash of Nen-light reflected in dead black eyes. His expression never changed, but there was a sense of frustration about him. He continued to turn the ring over and over in his hands, examining the Nen-flash from every angle, as his airship mounted higher into the deepening twilight. Back on the street, Gon was pressing his opponent hard, managing to stay in too close for the Billy club to be really effective. The club-thug’s swings had already created several craters in the sidewalk and dented one of the streetlights so badly that it was almost falling over, but his nimbler opponent simply dodged them and closed in again, hammering him time after time with his rock fist. At the same time, the battle between Kailua and the gunman had moved further down the street, as the gunner laid down an apparently wild pattern of fire that somehow neatly bracketed the former assassin, forcing Kailua back. Or at least, seeming to force him back. As they reached the intersection, Kailua suddenly darted around the corner, vanishing in a fading flurry of footsteps. The gunman hesitated, then grunted, half to himself, “I hope you don’t think that’s a new trick, kid...” as he proceeded to blast through the corner, hosing the area a step or two around the corner with fire. A shadow detached itself from the deeper shadows of the building’s rooftop and dropped, unnoticed, towards the gunman. The gunner abruptly noticed the thin, wire-whipping noise just audible above his gunfire, and jerked upwards, trying to adjust his aim in time. “Don’t worry,” Kailua said as he landed on the gun-wielding thug who was hopelessly entangled in his yo-yo wires, “I don’t.” Simultaneously, a short distance down the street, the scythe-wielder was advancing on Ryozha, who seemed oblivious to him, his eyes closed as the thunderous strains of “O Fortuna” filled his ears, accelerated to nearly a thousand times it’s original speed. Ryozha’s eyes snapped open as he adjusted, perceiving the music at its normal speed. The world around him seemed fuzzy, drops of sweat beading from the scythe-wielder’s brow hanging in a frozen trail air behind him as he rushed forwards. Ryozha stared, giving a low whistle of amazement, causing the thug to wince as the hypersonic vibrations, far above hearing range, assaulted his eardrums. The scythe-thug was actually moving visibly, even to Ryozha’s accelerated vision! He shrugged, and moved forwards in a blazing Nen aura, fighting inertia and trailing flickers of friction flame. His jointed staff moved, crashing into his enemy at supersonic speeds, seemingly from dozens of angles at once. After about an apparent minute of speed-time later, Ryozha noticed that his opponent’s expression had changed, to one of intense concentration. Then, without warning, one of the scythes moved, ever so slightly, and at just the wrong moment, snagging between sections of the jointed staff and yanking Ryozha off his feet as he tried to dart around to strike again. The boy could only watch in horror, jerked out of the intense concentration needed for his speed awareness, as things around him sped up, and his enemy’s other scythe swept up, blazing with Nen. Amidst the crackle of electricity and mingled smell of ozone and burning flesh, Kailua suddenly noticed that his opponent was smiling. He frowned, double-checking the location of his opponent’s gun hand. His frown deepened when he saw that the gun was pointed away from him, and so tangled that it couldn’t possibly point at him. Then he jerked as something whistled past his head, cutting his ear and setting it bleeding. He lunged back, concentrating his Nen into his eyes to shift his vision to Gyo, and swore as he saw the thug’s aura bristling with tiny spikes, several of which detached themselves and fired at him. He leapt back again, losing his grip on his yo-yos, and watching in fury as his opponent immediately shoved

himself up, untangling himself as his aura continued to fling tiny bullet-spikes at Kailua. He kicked the yo-yos clear, and then he smiled at Kailua, a cold, hard smile, that kind of lost its effect as he coughed up smoke. Kailua flew in with eye-watering speed while he coughed, but before he could reach his opponent, he had already brought his pistol up and blasted a virtual wall of bullets at Kailua. Gon’s opponent, meanwhile, was in trouble. He was starting to hear things cracking where Gon’s fists struck, and finally, in desperation, yelled “Whirling Club Fury!” and brought his Billy club around in a shrieking triple circle. Gon ducked under the first two, but then, unable to drop any lower without digging, held his ground and countered the third, strongest strike. There was a blinding flare of Nen, and when it cleared, the green hunter had vanished through a dust-filled new hole in the wall opposite where they had been fighting. His opponent came out of the spin and stumbled to a halt, panting. He grimaced and clutched his side as a particularly deep gasp jarred something that felt broken, and was probably at least cracked. He heard a crash and a shout behind him, hurled himself around, then collapsed, retching, as the world spun around him, then faded to black. A few seconds later, there was a shout and a blaze of orange-yellow Nen, and Gon came hurtling out the hole in a flying kick, only to roll to a confused stop as he met with no resistance whatsoever. He glanced around, and started to run towards where Kailua was being shot at. There, Kailua was being forced to use every trick he knew to avoid the Nenbullets; already he was bleeding in more than a dozen places from near misses. He had been trying to work his way around to his yo-yos so that he would have his weapons again, but his foe seemed to be expecting that, and every move in that direction was met with a hail of Nen-fire. Finally, he had given up on his yo-yos, and focused on dodging, scanning his surroundings and alert to any opportunity. Finally, the opportunity came when he bumped up against the lamppost that had been nearly severed where Gon and his enemy had been fighting. Taking a precious second from dodging, Kailua grabbed the lamppost and heaved downwards with all his strength. The gunman, caught off guard, was smashed to the ground as the lamppost buckled and crashed on top of him. Then, with a flare of blue light and the actinic smell of burning ozone, Kailua pumped as much power as he could muster into the feebly writhing gunner. Nearly a kilometer away, Ryozha was growing desperate; with every move he made, his opponent seemed to grow faster, his scythes moving in blurs even to Ryozha’s accelerated vision. Finally, Ryozha poured on a frantic burst of speed, separating from his opponent long enough to shift into Gyo; concentrating, he could just see faint, tenuous tendrils of Nen connecting him to the scythe wielder. His opponent charged, shrieking forward at near-supersonic speeds, and Ryozha felt a sudden drag on his own limbs; he moved, racing backwards, and saw the faint Nen-tendrils brighten, siphoning his power into his enemy. He shuddered at that, then smirked. “Okay, this may not be as hard as I thought,” to himself. Leaping forward and closing the space between them, he met his opponent’s flashing swing with an extended fingertip. There, with a flare of golden Nen-light, the scythe slowed, and nearly stopped. The scythe wielder, undeterred by this, brought his other scythe around in a blazing arc, trailing friction flame. Ryozha’s half-smile became a full, evil grin, and he touched the incoming scythe. The scythe wielder yelled as his weapon abruptly burst into flame, melting and deforming like wax. He dragged his remaining scythe away from Ryozha’s Nen-grip, noticing to his consternation that Ryozha’s formerly pure golden aura was now shot with thick streaks of red Nen as well. He moved back warily, and, when Ryozha didn’t use whatever new power he was displaying, charged forwards, hand, feet and scythe blurring in a complicated sweep. Ryozha met each with a flare of golden Nen wherever they happened to hit, not even bothering to block, aside from the scythe, which he met with another extended fingertip on the handle. “Whoever sent you chose an excellent counter to my Nen abilities.” Ryozha told him “However, they didn’t do their homework completely.” He met another, far slower swing with his staff, not even bothering to absorb it’s power this time. A couple more kicks and

strikes were met with indifferent shrugs and flares of golden Nen. The scythe wielder slowed and simply stood, staring, as Ryozha moved towards him in a fiery blaze of scarlet Nen, undershot with streaks of gold. “You’re very strong, I have to admit,” he said, “but there’s one ability of mine that you didn’t know about... although I guess I don’t exactly advertise it. My special ability is being able to use your movement, kinetic energy, to supercharge my Nen, or else simply to store it. So, if I’m concentrating, I can take every move you make against me and turn it on you. I can even make things super-hot by accelerating their molecular motion- that’s how I melted your scythe. So- do you want to surrender now?” The thug swore at him and leapt, bringing his scythe around in an unstoppable arc. Ryozha gave a one-shouldered shrug and casually dodged behind him, then grabbed him by the belt and back of his collar, accelerating him to more than two hundred miles an hour in an eye blink and continuing the spin, hurling the screaming thug, spinning, into the side wall of a building, which partially caved in on him. Ryozha turned to find Kailua and Gon watching him, Gon in wide-eyed amazement, and Kailua with a more calculating look on his face. “Oh, hi guys.” he said. “Hang on a second... I need to burn off some of this power- I’m holding too much to be comfortable.” Gon started to nod, while Kailua simply looked at him, but Ryozha was already gone, thousands of miles away in an eye blink. A few minutes later, he came back at (what was for him) an easy jog. The blazing red Nen-inferno had died down to a secondary aura, about equal to the gold Nen that was Ryozha’s natural aura. “How did you do that?” asked Gon. “Who do you think those idiots were?” asked Kailua, ignoring Gon’s question. “Well, at first I thought they were just more hired muscle out to steal our hunter licenses...” “Nah. Too strong for that.” Kailua interrupted. Ryozha gave him an annoyed glance. “I know that now, of course- as soon as they revealed their Nen, I could tell they were far stronger than hired thugs... although their technique of putting almost all their Nen into their weapons was certainly odd.” “Then it’s probably something to do with your hunt, Ryozha.” Gon said. “True.” added Kailua, “A lost Faberge egg is valuable, but nothing special... any decent Pro Hunter could find it. The key to... something...” He paused, and looked at Ryozha. Ryozha raised an eyebrow, but said, “The key to a legendary treasure, one of the biggest the world has ever known.” Kailua nodded and said, “That could attract all kinds of crazy people.” “Yeah,” continued Ryozha. “Also, that was kind of a lame excuse to attack us... guys that strong could easily get their own hunter license.” The three boys moved out of Bad Genknopf’s business district, heading for Gon and Kailua’s hotel. Ryozha said he would pick up his things from his hotel later, after arranging his checkout by phone; his room was bound to be watched if the thugs who had attacked them were indeed interested in his hunt. Gon happily agreed, while Kailua gave his special “I don’t like it, and I don’t really trust you yet, but I have no choice” shrug. Ryozha, perfectly aware what he was thinking (it wasn’t as if he was trying to hide it, after all), gave him an amused halfsmile. “If it makes you uncomfortable, Kailua, I can always find another place to stay!” he said, calling out to the other boy. Kailua looked taken aback, slightly shocked that Ryozha would simply confront him with it like that. Gon looked upset, and hastened to say, “No, no, we don’t mind at all, do we Kailua?” Kailua, looking irritated, simply nodded. Ryozha half-shrugged, then smiled and reassured Gon that he would be happy to stay with them. Shoot, he thought, I just meant to push Kailua a bit, to try and get him over the fact that he’s sharing a room with someone he doesn’t really know. I didn’t mean to hurt Gon’s feelings... He half-shrugged again, this time to himself, as he called the hotel he had just been staying at. Oh well. There’s nothing I can do about it now. His phone, bouncing through the specially prepared dummy relay he had paid an electronics company a small fortune to set up, reached his old hotel’s front desk. “Hello,” the desk clerk said, picking up the phone, “Genkopfia Hotel reception. How may I help...” she got as far as saying, before she was interrupted by an ear-shattering squeal of static. Ryozha allowed himself some small, secret satisfaction as the desk clerk (who had been annoying him the entire time he stayed there, making

stupid jokes and treating him like a child playing a game) gave a sort of audible wince. “Hello?” he half-shouted through the static storm. “What?” yelled the clerk into the phone. “Hello?” he said again, then, without waiting for an answer, went on to say, “This is Ryozha the Hunter. Something has come up unexpectedly; I’ve had to travel to Pyotokia.” “What!” exclaimed the desk clerk, “Pyotokia? But that’s halfway around the world! It takes...” Ryozha cut her off. “I know; Hunters have certain... resources available to them when needed. But that doesn’t matter. I want you to send my things to the Bad Genkopf Arms Inn, to room 203. Some hunter friends of mine are staying there and will be traveling shortly to catch up with me.” “But...” shouted the desk clerk through the rising static storm, “Pyotokia is halfway around the world! How did...” Ryozha cut her off again, his patience wearing even thinner. “Room 203 of the Bad Genkopf Arms Inn. You got that?” “But...” began the desk clerk, then sighed “Yes, little... sir.” she said, getting one last dig in. Ryozha frowned and snapped his phone shut sharply. “All right,” he announced, “my things should be getting here shortly.” “Fine,” said Gon, “but why were you yelling?” “Yeah,” said Kailua, “I was wondering the same thing. Is your phone that cheap?” Ryozha looked at Kailua, one eyebrow raised. He’s really baiting me, he thought, But... what can I do about it? It’s only been a few hours, but already I worry about hurting Gon’s feelings... I even kind of like Kailua, simply because he’s Gon’s friend. It’s weird... Aloud, he said, “Actually, that feature cost me a lot to set up. A special satellite router makes it seem as if I’m calling from... well, from anywhere I want to seem to be calling from. In this case I picked Pyotokia, because it’s as far away from here as I could think of off the top of my head. I’m hoping that whoever’s tracing me will simply take off for there, leaving me to work unhindered.” Before Kailua could comment, he added “I know they’ll probably place a tracer in my bag, but that doesn’t matter, since for now it’s going exactly where they think it’s going, to your room.” Kailua looked sidelong at Gon. “Hey Gon. Remember Hisoka’s system for determining an opponent’s Nen type?” he said out of the corner of his mouth, but still loud enough for Ryozha to hear quite clearly. Gon nodded, looking at him oddly. “Well, now I REALLY see what he meant about Manipulation users liking to lecture people!” Ryozha twitched slightly, glaring at Kailua, who gave him a cat’s grin. After a tense few seconds exchanging glares, he started to laugh. “Okay, I guess I deserved that.” he said. Gon started to laugh too, and, after a moment, Kailua joined in. After they’d settled down, Kailua asked “But seriously, why’d you pick Pyotokia?” “Eh?” answered Ryozha. “I don’t know. It was just a random country far away from here.” “Oh.” said Kailua. “Hey Kailua,” Gon said, “Isn’t Pyotokia where your family lives? That IS where Kukri Mountain is, I’m pretty sure... Isn’t it?” He looked at Kailua, who was kind of groaning, and looking at Ryozha. “Kukri Mountain?” Ryozha said. “Kailua... Kailua... Kailua Zoldyck? OH! Of course... wish the Hunter Website would update their photographs a little more often, though... the latest one they’ve got, you look about nine, and it’s REALLY fuzzy, to boot.” He met Kailua’s stare. “What are you looking at me like that for?” Kailua calmed himself a little, and answered, “Well... when most people find out about my family, they want to try and get the reward for turning us in, or get revenge or something.” Ryozha looked at him for a moment longer, then half-shrugged. “Maybe. But I’m not a blacklist Hunter; I’m a treasure hunter... and honestly, Kailua. I’m NOT your enemy. At least, I don’t want to be.” His mouth twisted in a half-amused, halfrueful smile. “Besides, I know a little bit about your family. Out of all of them, having seen you fight, I MIGHT be able to take you on. But you’re much stronger than I am, and I don’t really think I could win. And from what I’ve heard, your brothers... some of them, anyways... father and grandfather are all much stronger than you, at least right now.” Ryozha wandered over to a patch of floor that was wide enough and lay down on his back, stretching a little. He propped his head in his hands, and watched as Kailua relaxed slightly. Gon, who had been watching the strangely tense scene with a worried expression on his face, grinned. “Hey,” he

said, trying to break the tension completely, “we’re about to practice our Ten and Ren. Do you want to join us, Ryozha?” Ryozha glanced over to Gon, and gave him his usual lopsided grin. “Sure,” he said, and was abruptly on his feet, without any apparent intervening motion. Kailua jumped a little, and Gon laughed. Soon, all three of them were standing in a circle in the Hotel room, glowing gently with Nen-light. About two minutes later, Ryozha abruptly sat down, causing the other two to lose concentration. They looked at him oddly, but Gon said “What’s wrong, Ryozha?” Ryozha’s mouth twisted in a rueful half-smile. “I don’t know if this was such a good idea after all... I’ve done every Nen exercise I know at least three times, and made up two new ones.” Gon looked shocked, and Kailua blinked, seeming a little stunned. Ryozha paused, and looked at them. “I’m sorry... I guess I didn’t explain very well. When my Nen is activated, I have a really hard time working at normal speed... I just automatically go really fast. For EVERYTHING.” Kailua stared at him, and Gon looked at him, leaned back a little and put his hands behind his head. “That’s kind of cool... but it does make it hard for you to practice Ten and Ren with us.” Ryozha nodded, looking a bit glum, then brightened. “I know- why don’t I run and get some snacks, and maybe find some information on those guys who attacked us while you practice?” Gon smiled, and started to make a motion that might have been a nod. That was enough for Ryozha- he was halfway across town before Gon had finished the movement. Five minutes later he was seated in an Internet Cafe at a computer with a bag of nachos open next to him. His fingers blurred as he typed, and then he stopped. The smell of burning circuitry wafted past his nostrils, and he looked down. Aw, MAN! Not again... The keyboard was rapidly turning into a small puddle of melting goop. He glanced around, then, sure that no one had seen him, wandered over to the manager to complain about his keyboard melting. The manager apologized profusely and gave him his money back, which he pocketed, then ambled out the door. Once he was out of sight, he blurred away at impossible speeds, muttering to himself. Finally, after some thought, he decided to retrieve his laptop from his old hotel room. Glancing around, he realized that he had come a great distance from Bad Genkopf. He was in the deep woods in the foothills of the mountains that surrounded the little city. Reorienting himself as best he could, he slipped back into speed mode, sliding his headphones up and hitting random play. Racing forwards, he felt a strange tug at his limbs. The trees were blurring past with eye-watering speed, but something seemed off. He paused, and glanced down at himself. No snaky tendrils infected his golden Nen-aura... he looked again. His aura was pure gold! All the extra energy he had absorbed earlier in the evening had burned off. He sighed. Looking down across the mountains, he guessed that it was going to take him close to half an hour to get back... by which point Gon and Kailua would be finished their Nen-practice, his luggage would have arrived, and his Laptop would be ready to go. Okay, he thought maybe this wasn’t such a bad thing to happen. And I can’t believe I absorbed so much Kinetic Power from just that one guy... maybe that’s why I’ve been so jittery tonight! He shrugged. Oh well may as well get started. He raced off, leaving nothing but a brief swirl in the cool evening air. As he jogged gently up the street towards the hotel, the sun was setting and a light mist was rising from the ground. He let his Nen drop slightly, and shiveredit was colder than he had thought. A chilly breeze swirled the mist into strange shapes, and he glared around, almost- and here he mentally half-laughed at himself- almost daring something to jump out and attack him. After a few seconds, nothing did, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched by an unfriendly presence. He hesitated, but he was already too close to the hotel to deceive anyone as to his destination. He slipped in on silent feet, blurring up the stairs like a hyper kinetic ghost. He paused at Gon and Kailua’s door... Mine, too, for now, I guess... he thought to himself... and listened intently, reaching out with a feather-gentle probe. I can’t sense any unfriendly presences. At least, no OTHER unfriendly presences, and that one does not seem to be inside the hotel, he

thought. But I do hear... laughter? He slipped into the room, feeding a trickle of his Nen into the door so it whipped silently open and shut in an eye blink, speeding inside without the faintest sound. Kailua and Gon both glanced around. “Oh, hey Ryozha!” Gon called out cheerfully. “Why didn’t you tell us you had a laptop... and with such cool games on it!” Kailua enthused. Ryozha wandered over to where the two of them were sitting on the floor, banging away on the keyboard of his laptop and staring, enthralled at the colorful graphics. “Er... when?” he began, an odd expression on his face. Gon looked around again. “Oh, I’m sorry Ryozha! I just thought... er, we just thought you wouldn’t mind very much...” his voice trailed off. “It’s okay, isn’t it?” he asked anxiously. “It’s fine, Gon,” Ryozha hastened to assure him. He paused, and rubbed the back of his neck, letting out his breath in a long sigh. After all, it’s been a busy night... He gave Gon a lopsided grin, which quickly spread into a genuine, unforced grin. “But you’d better reset it for three players!” Some time later that night, once Gon had tired of the game and wandered off, and Kailua had sat back to sulk after being beaten seven games out of ten, Ryozha settled down for some serious searching. His laptop glowed gently with imbued Nen, and his fingers rapped out a staccato beat that rose in speed until it was nearly a whine. After a minute or two, he sat back abruptly. “Aargh!” he yelled. “I can’t find ANYTHING! This is stupid- I’ve searched more than twenty thousand sites without anything concrete at all.” He spun around to stalk over to the fridge, and tripped over Kailua’s feet, tumbling into Gon and bringing all of them down in a heap. They pried themselves loose, and sat back. Ryozha was still grumbling, but the other two were too busy staring at him to notice. “Doesn’t it mean that the computer is broken when the screen just flashes like that?” Kailua asked, while, at the same time, Gon wanted to know “How can you read anything at all when it’s going by so fast?” Ryozha glanced at them and blew out his breath in an exasperated sigh. “It’s not flashing, Kailua, it’s just displaying... really... fast.” His voice trailed off, and he stared at Gon. “You could actually tell that those were words?” he demanded, staring at the younger boy. Gon simply looked back at him. “Well, yeah...” he said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking embarrassed. “Shouldn’t I have been able to?” “No... No, it’s not that.” Ryozha said. “It’s just that...” “Gon has amazing eyesight.” interrupted Kailua, who had clearly regained some of his composure. Ryozha transferred his stare to Kailua. “He must have... But I still can’t find anything on this stupid pin other than rumors and speculation! It’s driving me crazy!” He slammed the laptop shut with a bang and a flare of pale peach-colored Nen and flopped onto his back. Gon and Kailua looked at him oddly, and Kailua asked “Pin?” Ryozha rolled onto his side and looked at him. “Yeah, there was this strange looking pin that was used to kill the old woman who had information I needed for my hunt.” Ryozha found himself tensing a bit as Kailua’s focus suddenly sharpened on him. “A strange looking pin used in an assassination?” he demanded, leaning forward. “Y... yeah...” Ryozha stammered, staring back into Kailua’s eyes. His eyes... he thought, gulping slightly, they’ve become holes... holes into a pit that I never want to see. Abruptly, Kailua backed off a bit. “Sorry,” he said. “But mention of my brother always makes me tense.” Ryozha made a slightly strangled confused noise as his eyebrow tried to climb past his hairline. Gon, meanwhile, just looked confused, then he brightened. “Ah, of course! Illumi. He uses pins, doesn’t he?” he looked at Kailua with smiling confidence, and Ryozha cringed inwardly. If Kailua nearly kills me accidentally just for mentioning a pin that might be connected to his brother, what’s going to happen to Gon? The look of profound shock on Ryozha’s face deepened even more when Kailua just looked at Gon and nodded with a small smile. “Yes,” he said, “my oldest brother makes his kills with strange pins with bulky, round heads.” The smile faded utterly as Kailua continued, “He’s DEADLY dangerous. If he has the ring... and it’s likely he does, if she always wore it; it would be proof of the kill... then it won’t be easy to get it back from him.” Ryozha looked at him steadily, still wary, when a sudden thought made him groan and sink onto his back again. “Oh, no!” he moaned, “Don’t

tell me I’m REALLY going to Pyotokia!” Late the next day, far out on the ocean and chasing the edge of night, Ryozha skimmed the restless surf on pounding feet, sending twin sheets of wake-plume high into the air to fall as a fine mist nearly a hundred miles behind him. Every so often, he would break his hair-fine focus to glance down at the small GPS locator unit in his watchband, to make sure he was still headed in the right direction. Beneath the preternatural calm forced on him by his intense focus, though, his thoughts were churning, as anticipation, satisfaction, and worry all clawed for dominance. Anticipation, at the moment, was winning; his thoughts drifted back to his last conversation with Gon and Kailua. “We’ll come with you right now, Ryozha!” “We can’t, Gon- remember we promised to find the Egg for our client within two weeks? We’d never make it to my house and back in time. Anyways, my house is easy to find, Ryozha; it’s near the peak on the highest part of Kukri Mountain. It’s also a major tourist destination, for some stupid reason.” Yes, I know that already, Kailua. Do you have any advice on how to get in? “Not really... I’ve never heard of anyone coming there just to ask if a piece of jewelry was taken.” “Mr. Goto will help!” “You’re probably right, Gon. If you can reach Goto, he can advise you on what to do. I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming, although I can’t promise how much help he’ll be. It’s really up to Illumi what happens.” “Oh! Tell Mr. Goto I said hello... tell Mr. Zain Bu-Lon and Canaria that as well. Oh, uhm... Mr. Zain Bu-Lon is the gatekeeper at the entrance of Kailua’s family’s land, and Canaria is the intern that guards the first gate.” Heh... All right, Gon... man, I’m going to have to write this down... “One last thing, Ryozha. You said that the assassination happened two nights ago, just before you met us? Right... then Illumi won’t get back to Kukri Mountain for at least another five days.” All right- I’ll finish my research here in Bad Genkopf- I need to make certain that the ring is really gone, so I need to visit the police station, and also to search the house, just in case. I’ll leave tonight. He hadn’t seen Gon and Kailua again that day or the next- they had left into the countryside to find the lost Faberge Egg- and the visit to the Police Station and further ‘net research had proved fruitless. He left his two new friends a note in the hotel room as the evening of the second day drew close, and sped out onto the open road, heading inexorably west. A fragment of the Symphony X’s Revelation (Divus Pennae Ex Tragoedia) wafted through his consciousness, and he whistled snatches of its Chorus as he raced off into the dusk. “Watching the night wandering alone, try as might to escape the fight, never let me go, alone, alone, I’ve got to find a way, a way, a way, a way to rise above it all.” The same song fragment woke in the back of his mind, jerking him back to the present. He frowned as he ran, focusing on it for a second. Then he started to laugh. Still laughing, he reached up and pulled his headphones into place. Skipping through songs, he found the appropriate one. The music started, and Sonny Bono’s voice came crystal clear through his headset... “I have climbed... the highest mountain... I have run... through the fields...” the song began. A minute later, Ryozha warbled along with the chorus, “But I stiiiill haven’t found... what I’m looking for...” Still chuckling, he sped off through the night, steadily catching up with the day that had left him behind. Nearly six hours later, Ryozha casually ambled up the central street of the small city at the base of Kukri Mountain, looking for a suitable hotel. Offspring’s “Staring at the Sun” spun rapidly out of his headphones, and he had to admit that after running halfway around the world, even he was feeling tired. A half-smile played across his lips as his last thought replayed itself... Even I was feeling tired... oi. I must be tired to be thinking crap like that... He glanced up at the sign of the inn he found himself standing in front of, and shrugged. Close enough. That’s it for me for tonight... er, this morning... bleah, whatever.

The next morning, he drifted across town to where the airships landed. Blurring in at invisible speeds, he glanced over the air traffic controller’s manifests. He then slipped back outside and slowed to visibility, frowning intensely. I should have known it wouldn’t be easy. The Zoldyck family obviously doesn’t like ANYONE knowing their movements, even for something so innocuous as returning to their own well fortified home. Best guess is that Illumi is arriving in the “field must remain open for maintenance” slot two days from now. There’s nothing else at all that could possibly be him. Of course, I could be wrong about his speed... or he might not even be going straight home... argh... I hate playing these kinds of games. Ryozha glanced around, but if anyone had noticed a young boy with his face contorted in a snarl, they were polite enough not to comment. He moved on again, just in case. The men who had attacked him, Kailua and Gon couldn’t reach Pyotokia ahead of Illumi, but there was no guarantee that they didn’t have accomplices or confederates already in place. With that cheerful thought, he decided to visit the train yards to absorb kinetic energy. After all, that’s still probably the best place to do it, I can pull a LOT of kinetic power from one train without anybody really noticing, since they have so much simply because they’re so incredibly heavy. He grinned to himself, and zipped off towards the train yards. A couple of thousand of miles from him, in a darkened basement, two powerful men were meeting. Both entered the room from opposite sides at precisely the same instant, leaving their bodyguards outside. No greeting was exchanged, but their locked stares spoke volumes. The one was short and wiry, with long, curly hair and a strange grace and utter confidence in his movements that belied his small stature. The other was so utterly average that you wouldn’t give him a second glance even if he was alone in a room, and likely not a even a first, at least, unless you happened to notice his eyes in an unguarded moment. They spoke of a soul not born to command, but of a soul who had reached out and taken it, battling through chaos and hell to grasp it in an iron grip. It was a measure of the other man’s strength that he could meet those eyes without flinching, and a measure of his power that he could do so without even blinking. They both sat at the heavy table set in the center of the room, again at precisely the same instant. Their stares remained locked, until the taller man spoke. Given the utter averageness of the man, hearing his voice was always something of a shock, although, in retrospect, his clipped tones and abrupt manner of speaking fit him perfectly. “Your patrons are concerned. When they are concerned, tremendous amounts of money are at stake and the balance of power is threatened. What is the cause of it?” were his words. The other man’s eyebrow rose in amusement, and he smiled slightly. “To the point as always, nai?” he asked. His opposite gazed at him with contempt, letting him feel the full force of his gaze. The smaller man returned the look with apparent equanimity, although a canny observer might imagine that his smile had flickered very slightly. The taller man spoke again. “Do not toy with me. I know what my position is. I know too much, but your masters are willing to let me remain unopposed so long as I am less trouble alive than dead. They are no fonder of upheaval than I am.” The small enforcer gazed back at him; his eyebrow rose again, this time in apparent respect. “As canny as ever, also, nai? I see. Very well; the games have been abandoned, although I like to imagine that you are as fond of them as I.” he paused, and the other man, on cue, snorted contemptuously. The smaller man allowed himself a secret smile, and continued. “There are rumors in the community that the Speed Hunter has been set on the trail of the Treasure. Personally, I do not believe that he will be able to find it; there have been too many working for too long to erase all mention of it for it to be easily found, nai? However, he is persistent, and has a habit of being lucky. Also, a disturbing... rumor has reached me. You have taken steps to remove what you perceived as a threat to our joint well being, if the rumors are correct. Nai? Boss Myoji?” The taller man, identified now as Boss Myoji, focused his gaze, stabbing into the small enforcer with the full power of his personality, and the smaller man wondered uneasily, not for the first time, if Myoji were an unconscious Nen-user. Myoji held the small enforcer writhing within his burning

glare for a full twenty-second eternity before he spoke. “I have hired the Zoldyck clan to take the life of the old woman who ran from your order fifty-two years ago, and required that they show me her ring as proof of her death. I then gave them the ring as part of the payment, because it interested them, as I knew it would. They have no way of connecting it with the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate, and no reason to try to connect it. And nothing... that... enters... Kukri... Mountain... Fortress... leaves.” The smaller man, forcing aside the discomfort he felt from Boss Myoji’s stare, smirked, commenting, “Well, obviously the Zoldyck's and their personal effects come and go frequently, nai? But I believe I understand your point. Very well. We will trust you on this matter.” With these final words, he stood and drew his long dagger in one fluid motion, holding it vertically in front of him. After that, he bowed, then abruptly snapped to a thin blue line behind his dagger, fading from sight like the image on an old television screen. Boss Myoji stared at it for a moment, then muttered “Showy.” He then, (and, had anyone else been in the room with him, they would have been hard pressed to tell whether he was congratulating himself on his own cleverness or trying to convince himself,) mumbled “But yes... nothing that enters the Fortress of the terrible Zoldyck clan leaves.” Two and a half days later, a bored and frustrated Ryozha stared up at the Gates of Trial that guarded the entrance to the Zoldyck clan’s Kukri Mountain Fortress. Nothing at all had landed at the airport in the “field must remain open for maintenance” slot, and he hadn’t even caught a glimpse of a ship that could be Illumi’s. Of course, Illumi could have gotten a new airship in the time since Kailua had seen him last, but it seemed unlikely. It was also possible that he had chosen another form of transportation, but that was also unlikely, given the distances involved. Ryozha then slapped his forehead and cursed himself out roundly for wasting time. A seemingly trivial comment from Kailua suddenly wrote itself in six-foot-tall letters of fire across his brain, mocking him for wasting his time. “... The mini-airship field behind the house...” Kailua’s voice echoed from several days ago. So, he thought to himself, at least I know how he got past me. Oh well... he shrugged. They say that the bold are lucky, or something like that... May as well give it a shot. He glanced down the mountain to make sure that there was no tour bus coming, there wasn’t one scheduled, but he’d seen stupider things happen to throw off plans, then marched up to the window of the small gatekeepers hut. “Excuse me, sir.” he addressed the older man sitting in the booth. “Are you Mr. Zain Bu-Lon?” The gatekeeper stirred and stood up, glancing around, until his gaze came to rest on Ryozha. He pushed back his cap and rubbed his baldhead, scrutinizing Ryozha carefully. “I am,” he said at last. “And who is this that comes asking for me by name?” Ryozha opened his mouth, then paused; “This may be easier if I simply deliver the messages I brought first.” he said. Zain-Bu-Lon raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” was all he said. Ryozha glanced sideways at him, then grinned; apparently the Zoldycks trained their servants in psychological combat as well as the more traditional kind. Either that or Zain-Bu Lon was just a devious old beggar; in either case, Ryozha was amused. He brought his mind back to the present, and said, “Well, first off, Gon sends his greetings, and said to thank you again for your training- it has really helped him and Kailua.” Zain Bu-Lon started, staring at Ryozha. Whatever he had expected, that apparently hadn’t been it. Ryozha smiled, but to himself this time. “Also,” he continued, “Kailua said to tell you ‘To need us is to know fear; to know fear is to need us.’ I’m assuming you know what he meant.” Zain Bu-Lon sat back heavily, nearly missing his chair. He didn’t seem to care, though. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his brow with it. “Master Kailua’s unique Zoldyck family code...” He heaved a sigh. “Well, at least I now have no doubt that you are genuinely coming from him. So... why are you here? And what is your name?” This time it was Ryozha’s turn to glance around. Satisfied, he asked, “Is there somewhere we could sit and talk? This might take some time to explain.” Zain Bu-Lon nodded, and motioned him towards the titanic gates that fronted the Zoldyck Estate.

He began to remove his jacket, but Ryozha stopped him. “Those are the Gates of Trial, aren’t they, Mr. Zain Bu-Lon?” When Zain Bu-Lon nodded, Ryozha looked the gates up and down, sizing them up. “There’s something I’ve wanted to try, ever since Kailua and Gon told me about these.” he said. Zain Bu-Lon looked bemused, and said, “Be my guest, try anything you like on them.” Ryozha gave him a halfsmile, but decided against his momentary whim of melting them to slag. Instead, he summoned up his Nen, a little shocked at the burst of scarlet power that surrounded him. Apparently he had been a little overenthusiastic in absorbing kinetic power at the train yards... as usual. He cautiously laid a hand on the gates. He would have to be careful, as he didn’t really want to tear them off their hinges and fling them halfway to the house. Okay, so the last bit was an exaggeration... he thought to himself. Let’s see- from what Kailua and Gon told me, the weight doubles with each door, starting at two tons per door for the first one... that makes the final door... sixty-four tons per side. Heh. One hundred and twenty-eight tons... He grinned to himself. Let’s see if I can do this. Carefully positioning his flat palm across the crack between the doors, he let his kineticNen surge, power roaring into the doors and slamming them open to crash against the walls they were hung from in a shower of concrete dust. He then zipped through, pausing only to grab Zain Bu-Lon. Once through, he paused just outside the range of the dust fall, both to let Zain Bu-Lon catch his breath and to check his Nen-reserves. Satisfied that the scarletshot-with-gold Nen he was displaying was enough, he looked over at Zain Bu-Lon, who was staring back at him with a kind of fascinated horror. “Er... sorry, Mr. Zain Bu-Lon. I guess I got carried away. I think things might be easier if I assured you that I do not wish to harm the Zoldyck family in any way. If we could sit and talk, I can explain why I’m here in more detail.” Zain Bu-Lon hesitated, then shrugged, motioning for Ryozha to follow him. Eventually, they were safely ensconced in Zain Bu-Lon’s kitchen. Ryozha glanced around, noting that there seemed to be another person who lived there, although, from the sense of the house, he wasn’t around. Zain Bu-Lon brought a pair of mugs full of tea to the table, and set them down. “So,” he said “why ARE you here?” Ryozha looked levelly at him. “It’s difficult to explain,” he began, “but the short form is that one of the Zoldyck clan, probably Illumi, has an item I need for my current hunt. He seems to have taken it as proof of a recent kill.” Zain Bu-Lon looked at him, and nodded. “It is not an unprecedented request, although it is a highly unusual one. But sit, and tell me what Kailua-kun is doing now, and his friend Gon.” Ryozha did, filling him in on all that had happened and passing along what Kailua and Gon had told him, pausing occasionally to grunt as he strained to lift the heavy mug of tea. When he had finished, Zain Bu-Lon hesitated for a long moment, and then sighed. “I will defer this matter to Goto, the manager of the estate. Please wait while I telephone him.” Ryozha sat back in the kitchen chair, watching as Zain Bu-Lon left the room. Shortly after, he heard him pick up the telephone and hit a few numbers. Probably an extension number, Ryozha thought. It’s a minor point, but it might someday be useful to know that Kukri Mountain is on a single line, like an office building. He listened carefully, but Zain Bu-Lon said exactly what he had claimed he would, and Ryozha couldn’t hear Goto’s replies clearly. After some time, Zain Bu-Lon returned. “Well,” he said heavily, “he doesn’t believe you. And he thinks you lied to Kailua, as well. But when I told him about what you did to the Doors of Trial, he didn’t know what to think. He is discussing the issue with the masters at this moment. We will see what they decide.” For the next few hours, Ryozha played cards and chatted with Zain Bu-Lon, amusing himself by seeing how far he could range when the gatekeeper blinked. Finally, the phone rang again. Zain Bu-Lon picked it up, and gasped. “It is for you, young hunter...” he said, sounding thoroughly shocked. “It is master Illumi himself.” Ryozha took the phone, nearly dropping it when he found that it was as heavy as everything else in the house. He recovered, and said “Hello?” into the phone. “I understand that you want something,” said the voice from the other end. “What is

it?” I suppose when you kill people for a living, you have little time for niceties, thought Ryozha. Aloud, he said, “What I want is to finish my hunt. To get any further on that hunt than I already have, I need the ring you took from the body of Lady Shelling in Bad Genkopf as proof of your kill.” There was a long pause from the other end of the line, during which time Ryozha focused his attention on the motion of the electrical pulses in the phone line. It was an odd trick that he had picked up, and one that came dangerously close to violating his pledge to use his Nen solely for the function of controlling and sensing motion. In any case, it worked, and he was able to pin down Illumi’s current location with reasonable certainty... or at least, the point where the phone he was speaking into was connected to the telephone network of Kukri Mountain. When Illumi finally spoke again, Ryozha was so focused on the pulse-trace that the voice (and accompanying cascade of tiny electrical pulses that accompanied it) came as a shock so great he nearly dropped the phone again. Illumi stated flatly “If you can reach me, you may have the ring.” Ryozha nodded sharply, then caught himself and said “Fine. I assume that none of your defenses will be disabled, and your people will be warned that I am an intruder?” “That would be a correct assumption.” Illumi responded. “One moment,” Ryozha interjected. “Would you be willing to suspend that for a single person? I have been asked to deliver a message for Canaria, the intern at the first gate, by your brother Kailua and his friend.” “Kailua has no friends.” Illumi responded. “He is a Zoldyck, an assassin of the highest caliber; a puppet of darkness bred to do his current employer’s will without fear, favor or remorse.” He paused. “However, I will do as you askCanaria is a minor part of our security and her impeding or not impeding you should make little difference.” “My thanks,” Ryozha told him with angry sarcasm, “but if you ever try passing out that dark puppet garbage around me again, I’m going to perform an enema on you to see if I can find your head.” Illumi ignored him, repeated, “If you can reach me, you may have the ring.” and hung up. Ryozha bowed politely to Zain Bu-Lon and raced out of the house, allowing himself to scowl blackly once he was out of sight. He paused and took his bearings. Okay... I’m pissed, he thought. Need to blow off some steam before I reach that jerk, or I’ll probably do something that’ll get me killed. But what... He halfshrugged to himself and zipped off to down the path to where he believed Canaria to be. May as well deliver the message while I’ve got some time to kill. A few seconds later, he came upon a pair of stone pillars flanking the path with a girl of about his own age or a little older standing between them. Hmm, thought Ryozha. Dark skin, thick dreadlocks, strange blue coat, and staff with a jewel containing a teddy-bear skull on the end... well, the description matches, anyways. He decelerated sharply and appeared in front of her. Her only reaction was a slight widening of her eyes as she shifted fluidly and fired off a series of lightning-fast lunges with her staff. Ryozha leaned slightly a couple of times, effortlessly dodging, but nevertheless impressed with her speed, doubly so in that it didn’t appear to be Nen-enhanced at all! Remembering something that Gon had mentioned, he backed off slightly, stopping behind a faded line in the dirt. His antagonist stopped also, settling easily into a waiting stance, her eyes staying alert not only on him, but on her surroundings as well. Ryozha gave her a rueful half-smile and shrugged. “Sorry about that,” he said, “but I think you were warned about me?” For the first time, an emotion crossed Canaria’s face- a flicker of open disbelief. “YOU’RE the one who’s trying to reach the house with all the guards alerted?” “Thanks for the reaction,” Ryozha commented dryly, “but I’m really not here for you to call me crazy.” He dug into his pockets, and then fished out an envelope. “Here,” he said, handing it to Canaria, “Kailua sends his best wishes, and hopes that you’re taking care of his skateboard. Gon wanted me to tell you all about what they’ve been doing and the adventures they’ve had, but it would have taken too long; so instead I made him record it all and copied it onto disc for you.” He glanced up, a little surprised to find himself still holding the envelope. Canaria’s veneer of detachment had vanished completely, and her eyes had teared

up. “They... they remembered me?” Ryozha leaned back and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeesh...” he muttered, “this job must really suck, huh?” A little louder, he said “Gon spoke of you quite fondly, and even Kailua seemed... pleased to have you called to mind, I guess.” Canaria’s face crumpled, and she started to cry, then made a visible effort to pull herself together, scrubbing at her eyes and taking the envelope that Ryozha was still proffering. “Thank you, she said, “but...” Ryozha cut her off by shaking his head. “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll talk to you on my way back.” With a sort of lazy salute, he vanished in a carefully damped-down sonic boom. Well... he thought that could have gone better, but overall, wasn’t too bad. And it did give me an idea... I’m going to take apart their entire security force, just out of spite. For the next half-hour or so, Zoldyck security officers found themselves abruptly hanging from tree branches in their underwear, by, their underwear, suddenly swimming in ponds three miles from where they had been standing less than a second before, duct-taped upside down to flagpoles, trees, or just about any other convenient structure, along with just about any other variety of humiliating situation you could think of. Well, thought Ryozha, brushing his hands together, I feel a little better now... on to Illumi. With that thought, he blurred into the trees, blithely ignoring the traps that snapped shut, exploded, or sliced past far behind him. Seconds later, he arrived in the Zoldyck mansion. He shifted one earphone back (the super sped-up beats of Evanescence’s “Bring me to Life”... an ironic choice to come up on random play here of all places... could be faintly heard) as he slowed to just under the speed of sound, all senses carefully extended- he didn’t doubt that the Zoldyck ancestral home was loaded with traps and secret passages. Pausing in a darkened alcove, he took his bearings. Despite the unconventional layout of the place (... probably deliberately organized to confuse intruders.), Ryozha was fairly certain that Illumi’s last known location was North and East, and a little above him. He whispered silently through the halls, as fast as he dared. Much of the mansion seemed to be darkened- Wonder if it’s because they’re assassins, and prefer shadows, or if they simply don’t use these areas, and more than once he nearly jumped out of his skin when he rounded a corner and ended up in an old torture chamber (thankfully unused at the moment, although all the instruments showed heavy wear), or nearly ran into a party of lethally armed servants, many of whom glowed with powerful Nen auras. Finally, he ghosted into the room where he had last sensed Illumi. He found the young assassin still standing silently next to the telephone. “You are above average in skill.” Illumi told him. “You’ve got quite the way with a compliment, mate.” Ryozha responded, and then continued (as Linkin Park’s “Bleed it Out” danced madly out of the loose headphone) “You said I could have the ring if I reached you. You’re here, I’m here... I’d say I reached you.” Illumi studied him with his dark, blank eyes for a few seconds (dragged out into an agonizing half hour by Ryozha’s speed awareness), then in a movement that would have been invisible to anyone but Ryozha in full speed-mode, flicked a trio of his lethal pins at Ryozha. Ryozha, forcing himself to react with apparently disdainful ease, snatched all three from the air in a single motion, wincing inwardly at the sheer power as he sucked their kinetic energy from them. Then, again with apparent contemptuous ease, he rocketed them back the way they came, suppressing a flinch as Illumi avoided them with a flawless absence of effort. Illumi looked at him for another long second, then nodded sharply. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the ring and flicked it at Ryozha in one fluid motion. Ryozha’s eyes narrowed, and, in a flare of Nen, he caught the ring out of the air, pausing briefly to suck the momentum out of the second trio of pins Illumi had hurled along with the ring. The pins tinkled gently to the floor, and Illumi gave Ryozha another nod, this one allowing some grudging respect. Ryozha gave the ring an apparently cursory glance (in speed awareness, he scrutinized the ring, straining every sense he possessed, studying it for traps, for more than an hour of subjective time), then bowed to Illumi, vanishing in a flicker of half-visible

movement. Shoot... thought Ryozha as he sped away. I’ve never spent that long tensed to run... I’m still shaky. He paused on the path to give Canaria a (forced) cheerful grin and a wave, and then raced off, too jittery to take the time to speak to her. He left a note in the kitchen, smoking with near-burning hot letters written at impossible speeds, thanking Zain Bu-Lon for his help. Then he blurred off at horrific velocity to explore the surrounding terrain at super speed, killing time (and winding down a little) until Gon and Kailua arrived. Behind him, the mighty doors of trial crashed with shattering force against the outer walls once again, nearly torn loose by the unfettered Nen-power he was too jittery to control. Meanwhile, some 300 miles... 450 miles... 600 miles... 475... 380... 300... 500... 430... (Well, you get the idea) from where Ryozha was, two young boys were getting off a train. Kailua glanced around and sighed. Somehow, all train stations looked the same. Granted, there was a limit to the number of ways you could design buildings for a place whose sole purpose was to move people somewhere else, but you’d think they could come up with a few variations... He glanced over at Gon, who was staring around with the rapt wonder he always reserved for new places. If he didn’t know better (but he did), he would have thought his best friend was just another empty-headed country bumpkin on an all-too-rare outing. Gon’s keen senses and powers of observation had saved him more than once, though, and he was content to allow his friend to look a little silly if that’s what it took to get the job done. Gon’s eyes flickered over the panorama in front of him. The train station at the base of Kukri Mountain had changed little since he had been here last more than a year ago. Then again, why would it? He glanced over at Kailua, wondering what thoughts drifted behind that emotionless face. Gon was normally very good at reading people, but there were times when Kailua, his best friend, was completely closed to him. He glanced around, hoping to see Ryozha waiting for them... even though he suspected that Ryozha wasn’t very good at waiting for anyone... but didn’t see him. Well... Ryozha knew their travel schedule, and they had his room number in the hotel where he was staying. It shouldn’t be too hard for them to meet up. Gon started to move towards the exit, then blinked. Kailua, walking beside him, tensed, his hands flicking in and out of his pockets with practiced ease, coming out with heavy steel yo-yos, his weapons of choice. He had far too much respect for his friend’s senses to take anything they indicated for granted. Gon glanced around, and spotted what had bothered him before- a shimmering streak of scarlet Nen-fire, laced through with lightning bolts of purest gold, appearing and disappearing in the same split second. He grinned, and waved. “Hey Ryozha! Over here!” he yelled. Kailua relaxed a little, his yo-yos disappearing into his pockets again. Ryozha came to a stop in front of his two new friends, still blurring a little at the edges as he shook with power he could barely contain in his current state of mind. He looked at Kailua, knowing in his heart of hearts that the other boy would not welcome his pity, but barely able to contain it just the same. To cover it, he flourished the ring, grinning broadly and, mostly, sincerely. “I got it!” he exclaimed. Kailua raised an eyebrow. “You got it back from my brother? Amazing... I never thought Illumi would let go of it so easily.” Ryozha snickered. “Easily? Well... I suppose he DID only try to kill me twice... and not very hard at that. But still...” Gon looked a little horrified, and Kailua half-smirked, wondering what exactly the other boy was hiding with this show of bravado. He didn’t think it was fear, oddly enough, although there was definitely residual fear in there. As an assassin, he’d learned the smell of fear very, very young. And he couldn’t blame Ryozha for being afraid after having met Illumi- he himself was still terrified of his older brother... Then his entire train of thought was derailed as the ring suddenly roared with power, blasting out a terrific flare of Nen. It flickered and died as abruptly as it appeared, leaving dancing afterimages on the retinas of all three boys. Kailua shook his head, trying to clear it, and noticed that Ryozha was nowhere to

be seen. About ten minutes later, Ryozha reappeared at high speed from the North, hopping from the tracks onto the platform and looking a little sheepish. Once he reached them, he suddenly started hopping on one foot, pulling his shoe off and dropping a clam out. “I must have been moving faster than I thought.” he mumbled. Kailua said nothing, merely noting to himself that the seaside was more than six hundred miles away. He looked at Ryozha a little more closely, and noticed that his Nen was doing the color-change thing again, and was almost entirely gold now. Before he could comment on it, Gon, who had picked up the ring and was fiddling with it, said, “Ryozha, do you think you could get it to do that again? Something looked...” Gon paused; searching for words, then gave up “kind of weird, I guess.” Ryozha, who was still vibrating slightly, gave a blurry shrug, and snatched the ring. The Nen flared again, less dramatically this time, and Gon studied the brief flash carefully. Ryozha and Kailua were also looking at it curiously, but couldn’t see anything coherent. Gon stared at the space where the flash had been far longer than Ryozha was comfortable with, but just as he was about to say something, Gon shrugged. “I... guess... it was nothing.” he said slowly, as if he didn’t quite believe it himself. Kailua nodded, still eyeing him carefully, and Ryozha, too jittery to care, said, “Come on- let’s get out of the train station.” Ryozha’s nerves were on overdrive. The unfriendly presence he had sensed that night in Bad Genkopf was back, closer than ever. Quite possibly, whoever this enemy was had come on the same flight as Gon and Kailua, following his pack. He shuddered; going even blurrier at the outlines, and metaphorically grabbed and shook himself. I need to focus, he thought, otherwise I’m doomed before I start. With that cheerful thought, he scowled, then reached for his headphones, I’ve been trying to adjust between speed levels without needing this all the time, but I don’t seem to be having much luck. Unfortunately, right now I can’t afford to go cold turkey and just live with it. Sighing, he slipped the headphones on, and majestic cadences of Tchaikovsky’s “Marche Slave” keened down out of the ultrasonic, slowing to a normal listening pace and bringing him gently back to normal speed. When does a tool become a crutch, I wonder? He thought absently. Then, glancing at Gon and Kailua, who needed no such aids, his mouth twisted halfsourly, half-ironically. Whatever that point is, it looks like I passed it a while ago. His nerves settled a bit, he glanced around, seemingly casually, but with every sense extended, including his ‘6th sense’ that traced motion, from the dance of atoms to the larger, cruder motions of people, even to the point of the giant motions of planetary orbits. He focused in, ‘watching’ the travelers passing through the airport. Beside him, Gon and Kailua also tensed, Gon in response to Ryozha, and Kailua in response to Gon. Each boy scanned their surroundings through their own unique senses. Around the airport, travelers began casting glances over their shoulders, wondering where the feeling of intense scrutiny was coming from. As they walked, Kailua scanned the airport, killer’s senses heightened to the maximum, and in their wake, people shuddered in uncontrollable fear, suddenly fearing for their lives without knowing why. Gon, searching the area with the senses of both hunter and hunted, predator and prey, passed through, silent as a whisper, as noticeable as the breeze. Ryozha walked in a silent fire of Nen, determined to ferret out their silent stalker who seemed to track them so easily. Kailua had found the tracker in his bag easily, and Gon’s keen senses had found a second when Kailua had asked him. Ryozha paused for a moment, carefully extending his motion-sense through his pack, and finding nothing that he did not expect. Stretching his sense a little, down through the ground and up a little, he scanned Kailua and Gon in turn. Gon looked at him a little oddly, but otherwise there was nothing to be found. He frowned, extending his senses again. A tall man brushed past him, and he stared at him, trying hard to find something wrong. Then, in a chance meeting of eyes, he glimpsed someone on the far side of the terminal behind the tall man who had bumped him. A subtle feeling of wrongness teased at the back of his awareness, and he stopped the other two. “Hey guys- just remembered.” he said. “I need to pick up some toothpaste.” “What?” complained Kailua. “Well, if you have to...”

When Kailua complained, Ryozha had turned to him, and was flashing words with his Nen- Something is wrong. I suspect the guy by the toiletries counter has something to do with it. Then he jogged over to the counter, carefully and covertly studying the man he had pegged as an anomaly. As he approached, the man had pulled out a cell phone, dialed, and, casually and unobtrusively, turned to the window and began talking. It was a perfectly natural motion, but one that raised the red flag a little higher in Ryozha’s mind, since the man’s face was now hidden. Hidden to him, anyways. He allowed himself a small smile- working with partners was a new experience, and, with such competent partners, a pleasant one. Gon had wandered off to look at one of the displays, and was at an angle where the man’s face was clearly visible in one of the overhead mirrors. Kailua, meanwhile, had stayed with their bags, draped over an airport lounge chair, apparently bored out of his mind, completely relaxed. Rhyoza’s smirk threatened to broaden, he was sure that the boredom was unfeigned... but if Kailua was relaxed, it was the relaxation of a big cat in the shade. The slightest threat, and the limp kitty-cat would instantaneously become fanged death. Ryozha’s smile faded as he drew closer to the counter, seemingly absorbed in the toothpaste- he actually did need more, but his focus was on the man with the cell phone. He reached for a tube of toothpaste, grabbing a random one as he scanned the man, far more carefully than he had scanned Gon or Kailua. He looked down at the tube to disguise the intense concentration that the task took, and nearly dropped it when his senses found a pair of hidden daggers at the man’s belt, writhing with snaky tendrils of Nen. He recovered quickly, and purchased the toothpaste, waving to Gon and Kailua. The three left the airport terminal, and Ryozha put his head close to theirs. “If we walk, we control his surveillance to a certain extent.” Kailua said. Ryozha nodded. “Pretty much what I was thinking. We could probably ditch him, but do we want to?” Gon chimed in. “I don’t think we want to, do we? One guy when we know where he is better than an unknown number of guys who we don’t know where they are...” Ryozha smiled at Gon. “Pretty much, yeah.” he said. “But...” continued Gon, “what if... hmmm.” he trailed off. Ryozha and Kailua looked at him curiously. “What if,” he kept going, “we grabbed him and tried to get some information from him? We never really tried to ask those guys who attacked us anything, and Ryozha couldn’t find anything out about them when he looked...” Ryozha turned a bit pink, and growled, “Thanks for reminding me, Gon...” Kailua nodded slowly. “That makes sense,” he commented, “since the information we’d gain would be more valuable than the simple information of knowing where he is.” Ryozha cocked his head to one side. “That’s settled, then.” he said. He disappeared, and reappeared a few seconds later, holding their tail’s twin long daggers. “Simplest way to deal with these guys,” he said, “take their weapons away- they’ve invested so much of their Nen into them that they’re nearly helpless without them.” “That’s true as far as it goes, boy.” said a new, deeper voice from down the street. “But you didn’t take into account...” here their pursuer gestured imperiously “the fact that we might have unusual ways of getting them back.” The daggers tore themselves from Ryozha’s hand and flew into their owner’s grasp. “You may have taken out those idiot pages,” their attacker stated flatly, “but I believe you’ll have a harder time with...” he charged, leaping into the air and bringing his daggers to bear, “ME!” and struck. Gon and Kailua moved as a unit, splitting apart and abruptly blazing with Nen. Ryozha hesitated a split second, watching where they moved, and then glared at the dagger-wielding man. Then his jointed staff was in his aching hands and he was meeting the attack head on. A crash, and a flare of Nen, Ryozha found himself lying on his back a good twenty meters down the street, clutching his staff with his head spinning. He shook it to clear it as Gon and Kailua raced in on the attack. He stood to his feet, and slipped his earphones in, noting, somewhat to his surprise, that Kailua had disappeared. As he started to move forwards, Kailua reappeared above their assailant, his yo-yos crackling with electric fire as they arced downwards in a

terrible, unstoppable blur. At the same time, Gon ducked low, bringing his Nenglowing fist up with his trademark cry of “First comes Rock! Jan... Ken... Pon... ROCK!” In Ryozha’s hyper-accelerated vision, the dagger-wielder took a split second to assess the situation, and to decide that Kailua was the greater threat. His Nenaura pulsed a little, and fed into the daggers in a terrible rush. A fine edge of crimson fire burst into existence along the edge of the long daggers, burning brighter until they hurt to look at. Then they lunged upwards, obviously (at least obvious in the slow-motion world that everyone else seemed to inhabit to Ryozha when he was in speed-awareness) intending to cut the wires on Kailua’s yo-yos, rendering them useless. A slow smile spread across Kailua’s face, and his wrists twitched, altering the course of his weapons slightly, sending loose, looping spirals around his enemy’s wrists and the dagger hilts. As they started to tighten, Gon’s fist connected with a CRUNCH! of breaking ribs. Then Digitalism’s “I Want I Want” thudded out of the headphones, and Ryozha launched down the street, hitting the dagger man like a tornado stuffed with bricks. Somewhere in the flurry, he saw Gon slamming the dagger man again and again, and Kailua fighting to keep control of the lethal knives, pumping uncounted watts of electricity into their enemy. Finally, the fires on the daggers died, and their foe slumped, barely conscious. Phew, Ryozha thought to himself, that jerk was tougher than I expected... And somehow, I almost feel like I was in the way in that fight. Gon and Kailua highfived one another, laughing, and Gon went to high-five Ryozha, who returned it without thinking, then winced, dropping his staff and clutching his aching hands together. He managed to stop, and, ignoring Gon and Kailua’s concerned stares, looked carefully at his hands. There were no signs of physical damage, and, when he simply ignored the pain and grabbed his staff, there were only two small scratches to show where the daggers had impacted. He looked back at his hands, lost in thought. He was jerked out of it when Gon shouted “Hey!” and Kailua said, “Use your Gyo, Ryozha.” Mentally cursing himself, Ryozha shifted into Gyo, and found nothing. Concentrating more carefully, he let his eyes defocus slightly, watching for movement. He caught a flicker out of the corner of his eyes and pounced on it, virtually dragging it into focus by willpower alone. Then he growled, lurching forward at impossible speed and hyper-slapped their semiconscious enemy awake, jarring the daggers he held loose. The snaky tendrils of evil-looking dark red Nen that were causing the tiny fires in his joints flickered, and then died as the dagger-wielder’s concentration was broken. “Watch yourself, Kailua- I think I broke his concentration, but he might be trying to burn your hands from the inside as well.” Ryozha snapped. “He’s obviously a transformation user- he was turning his Nen into fire- but his fine control is incredible!” “I know he’s a transformation user,” Kailua countered, cutting him off, “and I used my own transformation abilities to turn his fire into electricity, making it harmless to me... mostly, anyways.” Their attention turned to the dagger man, who was surreptitiously trying to rip his daggers out of Kailua’s iron grip. However much force he used to pull them to him, it was obviously less than the over sixteen tons that Kailua could exert, and wasn’t working. Gon was holding him down, having grabbed him when Ryozha slapped him awake, and Kailua leaned into their tail’s face. Grinning. The dagger man started glare contemptuously at him, started to turn his nose up... and then he got a good look at Kailua’s eyes and recoiled, jumping so violently that he nearly broke Gon’s grip. “What do you want?” he demanded shakily. “Who are you, mister?” Gon asked from behind him. The dagger wielder glanced uneasily at him, keeping one eye on Kailua, whose face was still bare inches from his, Kailua’s eyes like black pits, and answered, “My name is Alejandro, Squire-who-burns. We track you because you seek knowledge that it is forbidden for outsiders to know.” Kailua’s brows lowered menacingly, and his hand arched, then stiffened, becoming a terrible blade. Alejandro flinched, but Ryozha waved Kailua off. “It’s no use, Kailua. If these guys are who I think they are, you could break every bone in this guy’s body

except his jaw and he still wouldn’t talk.” He raised an eyebrow speculatively. “I’m not sure how conditioned they are to accept bits getting sliced off... but frankly, I’m not sure I want to waste the effort and cleaning bills to find out.” Kailua gave their captive a glare that suggested that he wouldn’t mind trying anyways, and Gon looked revolted. Ryozha ambled casually off, his hands in his pockets and whistled along with “Digital Love” by Daft Punk as it blasted through his headphones. ”C’mon, Kailua, Gon. I think we’ve learned all we’re going to from Squire-who-loses.” Alejandro shifted angrily, but Gon held him fast for the moment. He and Kailua glanced at each other, and then Kailua shrugged and drove the daggers to the hilt in the pavement in front of Alejandro. He smiled sweetly. “Have fun getting those out, Squire-who-loses.” Then he ran off, with Gon following him, laughing. As soon as they rounded the corner they had seen Ryozha disappear around, they found him standing there waiting for them. He grabbed them both by the wrist, there was an unpleasant wrenching sensation, and they were somewhere else. Ryozha leaned shakily on a nearby wall, gasping for breath. Gon looked at him worriedly, and Kailua regarded him half-contemptuously, half-awed. Finally, he straightened, and as he did, Gon asked, “Are you all right, Ryozha?” Ryozha nodded, then winced, massaging his temples slightly. “Blast,” he said, “I overdid it- barely had enough kinetic power in my Nen left to pull it off at all. Let’s find somewhere to sit down.” A quick look around located an open-air cafe, and Gon bought them all tea. Ryozha absently sipped the tea, and then made a face. “Eh... thanks, Gon,” he said, “but I don’t really like tea... anyways, whatever. I don’t think we have much time before someone catches up with us, and I don’t want them to think we know anything much. Here’s what I know: according to most of the legends about the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate, that’s the one I’m hunting right now, about seven hundred years ago, someone managed to gather all the treasures of the Ophirates into one place- a fabulous mound of treasure so large that it’s said it took an army of serfs just to load it on the wagons, which formed a train seventy leagues long, three abreast. There’s probably some exaggeration, of course, but the basics of it is that there was a LOT of treasure. Anyways, he assembled it all in an invincible fortress and created what was supposed to be the most powerful fighting force in the known world to defend it- the Knight-Guardians of Aerie Fortress. There are all kinds of crazy legends about them- two of them defeating small armies, fifty of them routing entire kingdoms, that kind of thing. One Hunter historian thought that if they existed, they might have been wild-talent Nen users, or maybe even practitioners of some secret way of using Nen. But anyways, even though the guys chasing us didn’t seem as tough as the legends make the Knight-Guardians out to be, there are still some things that they did, like the Nen-powered weapons and special abilities designed to counter other abilities, makes them sound kind of like the Knight-Guardians. If they ARE, then it looks like the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate isn’t quite as lost as it’s supposed to be.” Ryozha paused, then looked down briefly. “I’m... afraid I haven’t told you guys everything up ‘til now. I’m guessing that you guys already know that this is a class ‘A’ difficulty hunt. What might not be so obvious is that the International Money Council is very, very interested in my hunt, and that there are treasury agents from at least seven different countries trying to trail me. Plus at least one private group has hired a hunter to either compete with or follow me. I’m not sure which. Top that all off with these guys who might be the Knight-Guardians...” he raised his eyes, staring Gon and Kailua right in the face “and, well, I’m not even sure there’s a name for a hunt like this one. We’re talking literally worldshaking amounts of money- if this treasure is found, the whole world is gonna feel the shockwaves.” He stopped, trying to read his two companions. Kailua was closed, as always, but Gon... Gon was radiating enthusiasm like a small sun. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “A really important hunt!” then he hesitated, his face clouding over. “Um... do you still want us to help you, since it’s so important?” Ryozha stared at Gon in frank disbelief, and Kailua grabbed Gon, giving him a noogie and

laughing at him. Finally, Ryozha stammered “Er... ah... actually, I was going to ask if you were still willing to help me... Ah, I’m guessing that you do, then?” Kailua shrugged, and Gon nodded eagerly, leaning forward. Ryozha grinned, his normally cynical half-smile becoming a full, grateful grin as he said “Okay... well, I’ll tell you everything, starting with who hired me. Her name is Dr. Katrina Scheck, and she works for the World Money Council. She has a theory that if the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate were properly introduced into the world economy, it could... er, ‘stabilize the economic systems of many poor countries’ I think is the way she put it...” He continued to talk, explaining in detail what he had done up to this point, and where he... they were going to go next. END CHAPTER 1