Chapter 34: Getting Hisoka in Hand
"...Well, well. So that's what his ability actually is."
Lippo stared at the monitor for a long moment, then leaned back in his chair and laughed out loud.
As an indirect participant in the five-versus-five just now, the moment he saw the same Competition Roulette appear again and two figures vanish simultaneously, everything clicked. Ross hadn't been doing anything so narrow as "Nen exorcism." He had recovered a standalone Nen tool with its own spatial mechanics and rule system — and made it his own.
That was exactly how he had escaped the shackles without damaging them: by pulling himself and his partner into the independent space using a tool he now controlled.
In terms of ability classification, that was an entirely different thing.
"Warden — doesn't that count as a violation?"
The convict assistant beside him couldn't help asking.
"Of course not. I told them up front: no damage, no disqualification. The door can stay open for them.
The Hunter Exam tests candidates on their ability to read a situation and adapt within its constraints. If he found a way out that operated completely within my rules, it's my job as an examiner to acknowledge it."
Lippo popped another cracker into his mouth and dismissed the concern. He also knew his report was about to get a new section.
He didn't have the full picture of Ross's ability, but everything he had observed across the five bouts was enough to sketch its general shape: a rules-based ability with spatial transport, arena partition, and one-on-one duel mechanics. Even looking across the talent pool of the entire Hunter Association, that profile was genuinely rare.
Especially for a Bounty Hunter. As a method for isolating and taking down a target, this was about as clean as it got.
Whether Badge 406 had any interest in bounty work, though — that he didn't know.
In the meantime, Yusuke — standing at the final fork — was having a difficult four minutes.
Not because of Ross and Kuwabara. Ross had given him the window. The source of the difficulty was the presence at his back.
Hisoka: body bent and twisted, one hand pressed over his heart, breathing in deep, lurching intervals, actively working against himself to hold something down.
He was excited. Not about a fight with the people in front of him — or at least not the fight directly in front of him.
What Hisoka had seen in the Competition Roulette was a possibility.
A possibility of facing the Troupe's leader in a one-on-one duel — with no other Spiders able to interfere.
In that same moment, the "unripe fruit" label Ross had been carrying in Hisoka's internal register disappeared entirely. What replaced it was something far more specific: key shortcut to a duel with the leader.
Of the two of them bearing the four-minute wait, Hisoka had by far the harder time.
The four minutes ended. Ross and Kuwabara reappeared exactly where they had been. Ross's foot caught one of the fallen shackles and he stumbled.
At that moment, Hisoka burst out of the corridor.
Both hands clamped onto Ross's shoulders and hauled him off the ground entirely.
"Tell me the activation conditions for this ability! Right now! Immediately!"
His eyes were wide open, bloodshot lines visible from across the room.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing!?" "Let him go!"
Kuwabara and Yusuke reacted almost simultaneously, both dropping into attack postures.
The Spirit Sword — officially given its name now, returned to what it should have been called, at Ross's persuasion — erupted from Kuwabara's palm and leveled itself at the apparently unguarded back of Hisoka's head.
Yusuke's right hand came up in a gun-finger formation pointed directly at Hisoka, Nen energy beginning to concentrate and compress at the tip of his index finger.
Through the pain in both shoulders and the close proximity of someone with genuine hostile intent, Ross was running a thought process.
He put it together.
Right. He wants to use my Competition Roulette to get the Spider boss alone in a room. That's what this is.
Can't do it right now. Long-term, though — not impossible. The ability still has room to grow.
"My ability can currently only bring me, as the player, into fair competition against one designated opponent." Ross kept his voice steady, leaning on the word "currently." "If you have someone you want to settle things with, I can't fight them for you, and I have no way right now of putting the two of you in there so you can settle it yourself."
He had worked out the logic. Now he delivered the thing Hisoka most needed to hear, in a form that wouldn't invite suspicion.
"...Cur...rently?"
Hisoka was not fully rational at this moment. He was still rational enough to catch the word Ross had weighted. He repeated it one syllable at a time.
"That's right. Currently."
Ross nodded, and used his eyes to signal the two delinquents behind him: stand down.
"You know this thing has been in my hands for all of seven or eight hours. I haven't even been using Nen for two full days. So even when I can use it, we're nowhere near the level you just watched. But I can work on developing it in the direction you're interested in.
There's already an established progression to follow. Doing it step by step is the safest approach, and I have no intention of wasting my ability on half-baked development."
He paused deliberately.
Then the expression that came onto his face was genuine — the unshakeable certainty of someone with no doubts on this particular subject.
"You'll just have to trust me. Nobody knows Nekketsu New Record better than I do."
Hisoka had been scanning every detail of Ross's expression with the intensity of someone committing a face to permanent memory. The grip on Ross's shoulders gradually eased. He lowered him back to the ground, and even reached over to tug at his rumpled collar and smooth it out. The expression on his face settled back into what passed for his ordinary baseline: casually and entirely unsettling.
"Then~ do we have a deal?"
"We don't."
That was not what Hisoka expected.
Ross had both arms crossed over his chest, working his shoulders hard to rub out the pain.
"If you want something from someone, you offer something in return. Take too many times without giving anything, and eventually both parties end up resenting each other."
It sounded, on the surface, like a remark from someone with genuine experience of how these things went.
"...What do you want? Jenny? Or something else?"
Hisoka tilted his head, apparently finding Ross's terms completely reasonable.
"A favor."
Ross held up one finger.
"I need you — within the limits of your own principles, and only when you're willing to act — to help me once when I ask."
Hisoka took in the terms of Ross's fee, performed what looked like a thorough visual scan of Ross's face with the focus of someone making a permanent record, and then extended his right hand.
"So~ do we have a deal?"
"We have a deal."
Ross's right hand met Hisoka's.