The dead didn't smell like Makito Suja remembered.
Three days ago, they'd smelled like copper and decay. Like the natural progression of organic matter returning to earth. But the six bodies hanging in this forest clearing—suspended by crystallized blood vessels that had grown outside their skin like grotesque tree branches—smelled like nothing. Just cold air and the faint perfume of flowers that shouldn't exist in winter.
Makito had arrived at Hollow Island after hearing reports of their target Rakshas. For earning their bounty as hunters for the king of their country. But what they found was pure evil. And after Rakshas's evil business was done. He headed to another island to cause more death and destruction.
Makito knelt beside the leftmost corpse, the one that had been his team leader. Haruka. She'd been thirty-two, a Beast Hunter who could track anything with a heartbeat. Now her heart sat outside her skin, preserved in crystal, still beating. Still pumping blood through vessels that had been turned into art.
"You're still conscious in there, aren't you?" Makito whispered, his remaining eye tracing the patterns of her crystallized nervous system. "Still aware. Still suffering."
The corpse's eyes moved. Just slightly. Just enough to confirm the nightmare.
Rakshas's Final Gallery didn't just preserve bodies. It trapped consciousness. Kept victims alive in their own corpses, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to die. Forever.
Makito had found this clearing six months ago, two days after Rakshas murdered his entire team. He'd been the sole survivor—left alive because Rakshas found his desperate attempts to save his friends "aesthetically pleasing." The monster had even healed Makito's fatal wounds before leaving, ensuring he'd live to witness the aftermath.
Every week since, Makito returned to this clearing. To apologize. To promise he'd find a way to end their suffering. To fail, over and over again, because touching Rakshas's Red Nen meant instant infection.
But today was different.
Today, he'd seen someone actually hurt Rakshas. A fourteen-year-old child with sealed Nen who'd forced it to unlock through sheer willpower. Who'd punched that monster hard enough to make him bleed, to make him retreat, to make him feel something other than boredom.
Makito pulled a small vial from his pocket—a concentrated dose of his Eden's Reclamation Nen, liquified and enhanced over months of desperate experimentation. Enough carnivorous plant essence to consume a building's worth of hostile aura.
"I'm sorry I couldn't save you," he said to Haruka's twitching corpse. "But I can end this. I can give you peace." He poured the vial at the base of her crystallized blood vessels.
The reaction was immediate. Green vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around the crystal formations, consuming the Red Nen that held Haruka's consciousness prisoner. The vines grew at impossible speed, devouring Rakshas's technique inch by inch.
Haruka's eyes focused. Her mouth, frozen open in an eternal scream, moved. A single word escaped: "Thank... you..." Then the light left her eyes. Real death. Final death. Peace.
Makito's hands shook as he prepared five more vials. One for each of his teammates. One for each person he'd failed to protect. His vision blurred with tears, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
Koji. The youngest, barely eighteen. Gone. Natsumi. The strategist who'd mapped every mission perfectly. Gone. Takeshi. The joker who made everyone laugh even in their darkest moments. Gone.
Emiko. The medic who'd healed Makito's wounds a hundred times. Gone. Ryota. The mentor who'd taught Makito everything about being a Hunter. Gone.
All six bodies collapsed as the vines consumed the last of Rakshas's Red Nen. All six consciousnesses finally released from their six-month nightmare. All six faces peaceful in true death.
Makito stood among the dissolving corpses, his Eden's Reclamation converting their released aura into white lilies that bloomed across the clearing. A funeral. A memorial. An ending he should have given them months ago.
"I'm going to kill him," Makito said to the flowers. "I swear on everything you were. I'm going to find a way to kill that monster. Even if it costs me everything."
The flowers swayed in a wind that didn't exist. Almost like his team was listening. Almost like they believed him to. Whale Island, three hours later.
Gon sat in the forest from behind his destroyed house, eyes closed, breathing steady. Trying to feel his Nen. Trying to sense even the faintest flicker of aura. Nothing. The seal had returned the moment Rakshas vanished. Complete. Absolute. Like his Nen had never existed at all.
"You're forcing it," Killua's voice cut through his concentration. "Same mistake as yesterday. And the day before. And every day for eighteen months."
Gon opened his eyes. Killua stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his silver hair catching afternoon light. Behind him, Alluka was practicing her Nen control, creating small spheres of pink aura that danced between her fingers.
"I need to figure out how to unlock it," Gon said. "How to make it respond faster. If Rakshas comes back—" "When," Killua corrected. "When he comes back. That kind of monster doesn't make threats. Only promises."
"Then I need to be ready. Need to—"
"Stop." Killua sat down across from him. "Your Nen didn't unlock because you forced it. It unlocked because you were protecting someone. Because you put yourself between Alluka and death without thinking about the cost." He leaned forward. "That's the key. Your Nen responds to genuine sacrifice. To protecting others even when it means destroying yourself."
"So I just need to be in mortal danger protecting someone every time I want to use my Nen?" Gon's voice breaking with frustration. "That's not a technique. That's suicide."
"No," Makito's voice joined the conversation. The Botanical Hunter emerged from the tree line, his face pale but determined. "It's a condition. Your Nen sealed itself because of guilt over your transformation. But it will unseal under specific circumstances—when protecting others requires absolute sacrifice." He sat down, forming a triangle with Gon and Killua. "That's actually genius from a Nen perspective. Your power is now locked behind the purest possible motivation."
"Genius?" Gon stared at him. "It's useless! I can't control it. Can't predict it. Can't train with it."
"You can't train the unsealing," Makito agreed. "But you can train everything else. Your body. Your tactics. Your ability to recognize when sacrifice is necessary." He pulled out a notebook covered in dried flower petals. "I've been studying Rakshas for six months. His patterns. His techniques. His weaknesses."
"He has weaknesses?" Killua's eyes sharpened with interest.
"Three." Makito flipped through pages filled with diagrams and notes. "First: his Red Nen requires constant pain to maintain. Every time he uses it, he has to relive the moment his power killed his family. The stronger the technique, the more vivid the memory. It's why he spaces his attacks. Why he doesn't just massacre entire cities at once. The psychological cost is enormous."
Gon leaned forward. "What's the second weakness?"
"His healing factor requires external aura to function. He consumes ambient Nen, his victims' life force, even environmental energy. But if you can isolate him—create a space where there's nothing for him to feed on—he becomes mortal." Makito's remaining eye gleamed. "My Eden's Reclamation can create such a space. Carnivorous plants that devour all aura in a localized area. That's my special ability. It also allows me to create vials for doses of such things to."
"And the third weakness?" Killua asked.
Makito's expression darkened. "He's lonely. Desperately, achingly lonely. He collects people in his Final Gallery not just for art—but because they're the only company he has. The only consciousness he can interact with that won't run or die immediately." He looked at Gon. "That's why he's obsessed with you now. You're the first person in years who fought back and survived. Who hurt him and lived to tell about it. He sees you as... a potential equal. Someone who might understand what he is. I had understood everything about him right after I had finished dealing with him myself in a much gruesome matter."
"I'll never understand a monster like that," Gon said, his fists clenching.
"Won't you though?" Makito's question hung in the air like a blade. "You transformed into something inhuman to avenge Kite. Sacrificed your potential, your future, your humanity for revenge. How is that different from what Rakshas does? He sacrifices his sanity every time he uses his power because he can't see any other way to exist." Killuha said.
The words hit Gon like a physical blow. Because they were true. Because he had been a monster once. Because the line between him and Rakshas was thinner than he wanted to admit.
"The difference," Killua said quietly, "is that Gon came back. He had people who pulled him from the darkness. Rakshas has been alone since age two. No one to remind him what humanity truly feels like."
"Can't save everyone," Gon muttered, echoing words he'd heard before.
"No," Makito agreed. "But you can stop him from creating more victims. That's what I've been trying to do for six months. Failing, mostly, but trying." He stood, brushing flower petals from his clothes. "I freed my team today. Ended their suffering. It took me six months to figure out how to counter his Final Gallery technique." He looked at Gon with frightening intensity. "We don't have six months. Rakshas will come back for you within weeks. Maybe days."
"Then we train," Killua said, standing as well. "All of us. Gon trains his body and combat instincts. I evolve my Electric Blaster form further. Makito perfects his aura-devouring plants. And when that monster comes back—"
An explosion rocked the island.
All three of them spun toward the village. Smoke rising. Screams echoing. The familiar pressure of malicious aura washing over them like a tsunami. "No," Makito breathed. "No, it's too soon. He shouldn't be healed yet. The damage Gon inflicted should have taken weeks to heal because it did hurt him pretty bad and—"
"He's not healed," Killua interrupted, his eyes glowing with Nen as he analyzed the aura signature. "He's testing us. That's not an attack aura. It's a death rattle. He's burning everything he has left."
They ran. The village square was chaos. But not from an attack. From a warning. In the center of the square, burned into the ground in letters fifty feet tall, was a message written in crystallized blood:
"THREE DAYS. THEN I COLLECT MY ART. - R"
And standing in the middle of the message, swaying like he might collapse at any moment, was Rakshas himself.
He looked like death. The left side of his body was still charred from Gon's Liberation technique. His ribs were visible through burned flesh. One eye was swollen shut. Blood leaked from his mouth with every breath.
But he was smiling.
"Hello again, trash pile," Rakshas said, his voice rough but steady. "I came to deliver an invitation. Three days from now, I'll be waiting at the old temple ruins on the northern mountain. Come alone, and I'll show you something beautiful. Something that will change how you see the world. And not gonna lie. You damaged me far beyond of what I thought possible."
"Why would I do that?" Gon demanded, stepping forward. Killua and Makito flanked him, ready to attack.
"Because if you don't," Rakshas coughed blood, "I'll visit every island in this archipelago. Every village. Every town. And I'll turn them all into galleries. Into art. Into screaming conscious corpses that will beg for death for centuries." His working eye fixed on Gon. "But if you come alone—if you face me in single combat—I'll spare everyone else. Win or lose, this island chain remains untouched."
"You're lying," Killua snarled.
"Am I?" Rakshas tilted his head. "I don't need to lie. I could kill everyone here right now if I wanted. Even dying, even broken, I'm still stronger than all of you combined." He took a step toward Gon. "But I don't want massacre. I want you. Specifically. Uniquely. You're the first trash pile I've met who might actually be worth preserving. I might even make you my first royal guard. After all... before long. I'll be the king of the world. It's my only desire, and my only purpose today. But now that I think about it, you don't deserve to me my royal guard. Damned trash pile."
Gon's mind raced. This was a trap. Obviously. Rakshas wanted him isolated, vulnerable, easy to capture for his Final Gallery. But if he refused, how many would die? How many villages would burn while Gon stayed safe?
"I'll come," Gon said. "NO!" Killua grabbed his arm. "Gon, this is suicide. You don't have reliable access to your Nen. You can't—"
"I'll come," Gon repeated, pulling free. He looked at Rakshas. "Three days. The temple ruins. Alone. And if you've lied—if you've hurt anyone before then—I'll hunt you to the ends of the earth."
Rakshas's smile widened. "Perfect. Absolutely perfect." He turned to leave, then paused. "Oh, and bring that sealed Nen of yours. I want to see what you look like when you unlock it deliberately. When you choose to sacrifice rather than being forced to." He coughed more blood. "It'll make such beautiful data."
Then he was gone, vanishing into the forest, leaving only crimson petals and that terrible message burned into the ground. Silence. "You can't do this," Makito said. "We need more time. Need to prepare. Need to—"
"We have three days," Gon interrupted. "So we use them. You teach me everything you know about his techniques. Killua teaches me how to fight without Nen. And I figure out how to unseal my power on purpose." He looked at both of them. "Because in three days, I'm ending this. One way or another."
Killua stared at his best friend, reading the determination in his eyes. The same determination that had driven him to train for months to open Nen nodes. To master Nen in record time. To defeat enemies that should have been impossible. And stronger than ever.
The same determination that had turned him into a monster once before entirely.
"Okay," Killua said finally. "Three days. But we do this smart. We train you to survive without Nen first. Assume it won't unlock. Assume you'll be fighting a Nen user more powerful than Meruem with nothing but your body and tactics."
"And if it does unlock?" Gon asked.
"Then we make sure you have a technique that can actually kill him," Makito said. "Because Liberation wasn't enough. You need something more. Something that doesn't just damage him—but erases him completely."
Gon nodded. Three days to prepare for a fight he probably couldn't win. Three days to figure out how to kill a monster who'd been broken since age two. Three days to decide how much of himself he was willing to sacrifice.
Above them, the sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. Beautiful colors. Murder colors. And somewhere in the forest, Rakshas was laughing. Dying and laughing, because finally, finally, someone had accepted his invitation.
The game was accelerating. And the stakes had just become absolute.
TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "Three Days of Hell"]