Night fell, the moon hanging at its zenith.
Kisho frowned, staring at the heavy night outside the garbage mountain. He sensed an indescribable feeling of "the storm is coming, the wind fills the tower."
Something was wrong.
Under normal circumstances, Amos should have been back by now—whenever the poison in his body flared up, Amos would always appear by his side, waiting in silence.
But tonight, he could already feel the poison inside him beginning to stir—quiet and patient, gathering strength, waiting for the moment to drag him into hell.
Yet Amos still hadn't returned.
"He shouldn't be in trouble…" Kisho took out the phone Amos had given him and clenched it in his palm. "If he ran into something he couldn't handle, he would naturally contact me—he's been doing that these past few days."
He flipped the phone open, his finger hovering over the dial key, then hesitated again.
"If he's lying low, and I call him rashly, will it—"
However, before he could reach a conclusion, in some instant he hadn't yet registered, an extremely faint stab of pain flashed and vanished.
Then, within just a few moments, the pain spread throughout his entire body. As the attacks increased, each one grew fiercer than the last, as if something were gnawing at every inch of his flesh and blood.
"Mm…" Kisho bit his lip, suppressing the involuntary whimper, and curled up.
"Bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz~ bzz bzz bzz bzz bzz~"
The next moment, his scattered consciousness—shattered by the sudden agony—was jolted awake by the phone vibrating incessantly in his hand.
Kisho was almost too weak to hold on to it. Only by digging his fingertips into his palm did he manage to trap the phone there and press the answer key.
He took a deep breath, forced down another wave of pain, and spoke softly: "…Hello."
"—Hm?"
The voice on the other end wasn't Amos's. That realization made Kisho instantly tighten his grip on the phone, nearly crushing it.
His voice turned cold at once: "Who are you—?"
"Mm~"
The laughter sounded slightly distorted through the battered phone's audio quality, but the instant Kisho heard it, his body felt as if it had been electrified. He even forgot the intense pain inside him, going numb from head to toe.
"Little kid~ it'd be better to let the adult in your family take the call~" The person on the line lifted the ending of their words, speaking in an extremely careless tone.
"Or could it be that you're the owner of this number~~"
Kisho's body went taut, numb to the extreme.
He steadied himself, lowered his voice, and said: "Just who exactly are you—"
"Ah, ah, don't worry about who I am just yet~"
The person on the other end laughed.
"Within a quarter of an hour, the tallest building in District Five. See you there~"
"Kisho—no—mm!"
Along with that voice came Amos's voice, followed by a muffled groan suppressed to the extreme.
Rage nearly overflowed from Kisho's eyes.
"Ma~ this little brat should be someone you know, right~~"
"But if you don't want to come, that's fine too~ I'll come find you instead, bringing this little brat's corpse~~" The voice paused slightly. "That's it then, hanging up now~"
After saying that, the person didn't wait for Kisho's response and decisively ended the call.
"Beep—beep—beep—"
Kisho pressed the phone that was emitting the busy tone dark. He grit his teeth and tried to stand, but his legs—drained of strength—made him crash heavily back to the ground.
Gritting his teeth, Kisho stood up once more and slowly took a step forward.
Compared to the first time he was poisoned, he could now act while enduring the pain—but only slowly.
"Damn it—! Why does it have to be now—!"
Anger and frustration drowned him. Yet anger was useless. If he couldn't reach the designated place within the half hour the other party had set…
He slowly lowered his head, fell silent for a moment, gently closed his eyes, and called out in a low voice: "…Noah."
"I'm sorry, but could you… help me…"
...
Kisho—or rather, Noah Barton—moved through the garbage mountain in the night at extreme speed, like a ghost, like lightning.
Within the allotted time, he arrived at a stretch of ruins. Here stood the tallest building in all of District Five—a clock tower missing one corner. At the top of its towering spire, where a bronze bell should have hung, there was nothing.
A young man stood there, leaning against a pillar of the clock tower, relaxed and casual.
As Noah withdrew, Kisho "woke up," lifting his eyes to look at the person standing by the clock tower.
As if sensing the gaze, the man slightly turned his head, the corner of his mouth curling as he looked back at Kisho.
The instant their eyes met, Kisho felt a sudden chill run through his entire body for no apparent reason.
The young man's figure vanished abruptly—and when he reappeared, he was already less than five meters from Kisho.
Facing him like a great enemy, Kisho tensed his body to the limit. A drop of cold sweat slid down from his temple.
"So it really is a little kid~"
Staring at Kisho, the young man tilted his head slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting.
His face was painted with heavy makeup, dotted with star and water-drop marks. His orange-red hair stuck up wildly. He wore clothes tightly cinched at the waist, and high heels on his feet.
—He looked like a circus magician.
—But a circus would absolutely never have such a dangerous, such a deranged magician!
Even at first glance, Kisho could be one hundred percent certain: this person was absolutely not normal!
"Ah, ah, I thought a Spider undergoing an assessment would be some kind of impressive character."
The young man stared at Kisho, the narrow eyes that squinted slightly revealing an extremely dangerous dark glint.
"What a… disappointment~"
Though he said "disappointment," his eyes were filled with ultimate madness and ultimate pleasure.
He stuck out his tongue and slowly licked the corner of his mouth, like savoring dessert before the main course.
Kisho felt his body trembling—not from pain, but from fear; and from an overwhelming discomfort at not knowing how to face the person before him.
This lunatic was surrounded by completely unrestrained Nen, and that terrifying, despair-inducing pressure of Nen—he had only ever felt it from one person before.
He… was probably just as terrifying as Chrollo—
But he would rather face Chrollo than face this guy who couldn't even speak like a human.
Because Chrollo's Nen pressure was cold and silent.
But this lunatic's Nen was filled with his madness for slaughter and battle—he craved combat, craved blood, craved death—whether it was death he brought to others, or death others brought to him.
Kisho suppressed his fear. Even though his teeth were chattering, he still asked, word by word:
"…Where is the owner of the phone!"
The young man stared at him with eyes full of delight. The curve of his raised mouth made his smile carry a horrifying meaning.
Kisho's expression grew grave. Seeing that this person had no intention of answering him at all, he pushed his perceptive ability to the maximum—
Amid these ruins, aside from the towering clock tower, he sensed the lunatic's terrifyingly powerful Nen—and beneath another corner of the clock tower, an extremely faint Ten.
"Amos…"
Although he sensed Amos's presence, his Ten was already so weak it was almost imperceptible.
A shadow fell over Kisho's eyes as he silently clenched his fist.
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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