Chrollo chose to embrace death.
Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth, yet his eyes were remarkably bright.
"I know you can use special means to drag me back into the world of the living. But that doesn't matter anymore."
After seeing what had happened to the Fourth Prince, Chrollo had already come to terms with it.
If Ronin could pull the Fourth Prince back from the realm of the dead, then there was no reason he couldn't do the same to him. But just as he said, that no longer had any meaning.
Because even if he was brought back, he would only be a puppet in Ronin's hands.
Chrollo raised his head and looked up at the sky.
Dawn had already appeared. The darkness of night was about to be driven away. Even he couldn't quite describe what he was feeling right now.
It was strange, in a way.
Although he had failed to achieve his final goal—ensuring Meteor City would never again be violated by outsiders—at least through his constant actions, the main culprit behind Sarasa's death had already died.
In fact, almost everyone connected to that chain of events was dead.
Whether it was the Fourth Prince behind the scenes, Lisnos who had personally committed the crime, or the tattoo artist who had long followed the Fourth Prince's side, they were all gone.
He just wondered whether, when he reached the other side and sincerely apologized, Sarasa would choose to forgive him.
Probably not.
After all, along this road, his hands had been stained with far too much blood.
Many of those people had been innocent, just like they once were back then.
But he did not regret it.
Kurapika appeared behind Ronin, dragging the unconscious—or possibly dead—Kortopi in his hand like a dead dog.
Seeing Chrollo looking up at the sky, accepting death, Kurapika's eyes burned an intense red.
He had seen Pairo's head inside that vault.
The Troupe members should not be allowed to die so easily.
They should kneel in front of Pairo and repent sincerely, then descend into hell and suffer endless agony. That was the ending they deserved.
Ronin heard the footsteps. When he turned his head, he immediately sensed that something was wrong with Kurapika's emotions.
But in this situation, he didn't know what else he could say to persuade him.
All he could do was step aside, allowing Kurapika to walk up to Chrollo.
Kortopi was thrown at Chrollo's feet.
But Chrollo showed no reaction at all. He remained exactly as he was, head lifted toward the sky.
Ronin could sense that Chrollo's aura had completely vanished.
He was dead.
"Ronin-nii, can you reincarnate them?" Kurapika looked at Ronin with blood-red eyes. Aside from rage, all that remained in those Scarlet Eyes was unwillingness.
Ronin shook his head.
"Sorry. Not right now."
Ronin chose to refuse. On one hand, he didn't have the materials. On the other, after everything that had happened, he had realized that Beyond had been manipulating things from behind the scenes all along.
So now was not the time to relax and focus on revenge.
Kurapika had not expected Ronin to answer like that, and his expression froze.
"Now isn't the time. Bring the bodies. Also bring all the Scarlet Eyes. We need to leave as soon as possible," Ronin reminded him.
Kurapika pressed his lips tightly together.
For the first time, he did not rationally obey Ronin's decision. Instead, he suddenly stepped forward.
"Why not?"
Ronin frowned.
"Because—"
Before he could finish, Kurapika cut him off.
"Because you suspect there's someone else behind this? Because you're worried they'll take advantage of us at this moment?"
"Yes." Ronin let out a slight breath of relief.
Since Kurapika understood that, there should be no problem.
But Kurapika revealed a mocking smile.
"The truth is, you don't care about the Kurta Clan at all. You don't care about revenge either. The only thing you cared about from the very beginning was the Scarlet Eyes."
Ronin narrowed his eyes.
So that was how Kurapika saw him?
Still, Ronin admitted that, compared to revenge, obtaining the Scarlet Eyes did rank higher in priority for him.
But so what?
That didn't conflict with the fact that he had been taking action all this time.
And every action he had taken had followed the path of revenge.
Excluding Hisoka, the fake member, more than half of the Troupe's twelve members had been dealt with by him.
That included Chrollo.
Without him, if Kurapika had relied only on himself, then by the time the voyage began in the manga, how many Troupe members would he actually have been able to kill?
In fact, judging by the manga, Kurapika barely had much intention of pursuing the Troupe anymore. His first priority had already shifted from revenge to collecting his clan's eyes.
Now the Troupe was almost completely wiped out.
And just because Ronin refused to immediately reincarnate Chrollo with Edo Tensei, Kurapika was already trying to order him around.
Who had given him that courage and confidence?
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Ronin's tone was very calm, but disappointment had already appeared in the way he looked at Kurapika.
"Are you still the Ronin-nii I know?" Kurapika did not back down in the slightest. Instead, he took another step forward, raised his head, and looked straight into Ronin's eyes.
"Have I ever done anything harmful to the Kurta Clan? Has anything I've done had nothing to do with revenge?" Ronin's presence grew stronger. He ignored Kurapika's question and pressed back with questions of his own.
"You want to say that without you, I might never have completed my revenge in my entire life, don't you? That's what you're thinking, right? I was just a tool who provided some ideas. The revenge was only completed because of you, wasn't it?"
Kurapika pressed him aggressively.
But Ronin suddenly calmed down.
He looked down at Kurapika, who was more than a head shorter than him, and suddenly smiled.
Then, without giving Kurapika any time to react, he drove his fist straight toward Kurapika's abdomen.
He was too fast.
And the attack was far too sudden.
Even so, Kurapika's chains still reacted, forming a defense in front of Ronin's fist.
But it was useless.
Although Ronin had already canceled the Strength of a Hundred Seal, he still had plenty of Nen left.
On top of that, this punch was a pure burst of Enhancement power. The moment Kurapika's chains touched his fist, they shattered inch by inch.
Bang!
The fist struck Kurapika squarely in the abdomen.
But Kurapika was not sent flying by the blow.
Instead, the moment Ronin's fist hit him, it shifted into an open palm and pressed tightly against Kurapika's stomach.
Chakra flowed into Kurapika's body.
In an instant, the incantation marks of the Four Symbols Seal surfaced across Kurapika's body.
And what the Four Symbols Seal captured was not Kurapika's own Nen.
It was another aura that existed inside Kurapika's body.
In only a moment, the seal was complete.
Ronin's gaze moved past Kurapika and landed not far away.
At the same time he looked in that direction, the sound of applause rang out.
A tall figure slowly walked out from the shadows of the ruins.
Beside him were two other figures.
One was someone Ronin knew: Marione, a member of the Hunter Association's temp staff.
As for the other, Ronin didn't know her personally, but he had seen her in the manga.
She was someone Ging had judged to be an extremely dangerous existence—
a girl in a sailor uniform who looked almost like a puppet.
~~~
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