Chapter 131: The Fishing Rod and the Centaur
The audience leaned forward, hearts pounding at the sudden, gutteral roar.
Into the center of the artificial blizzard stepped a massive foot, followed by a hulking figure covered in thick white fur.
It was a man, standing over four meters tall, bearing a striking resemblance to a legendary Yeti.
The "Yeti" immediately spotted the Two-Headed Girl amidst the swirling snow.
He rubbed his eyes in a comical gesture of disbelief.
The moment of humor provided a brief, sharp contrast to the tension, and Ronin heard ripples of nervous laughter from the seats around him.
But the relief was fleeting. Most were still terrified for the girl's fate.
The Yeti didn't hesitate. He lunged, reaching out with a massive, fur-covered hand to snatch the girl. Her slender waist looked like it would snap like a dry twig in his grip. Screams erupted from the theater as the giant lifted her, his maw opening as if to swallow her whole.
At that exact second, a fishing line whipped through the air from the back of the stage.
It coiled with pinpoint accuracy around the Yeti's wrist. As the line snapped taut with a violent yank, the giant let out a howl of pain, losing his grip.
The Two-Headed Girl plummeted to the snow—one head maintaining a mask of icy calm, the other screaming in terror.
Out of the fog stepped a woman in professional mountaineering gear, a fishing rod gripped firmly in her hands.
The Yeti snarled, grabbing the line and trying to pull the woman toward him.
The audience gasped, certain the woman would be crushed. But with a sharp TWANG, the line snapped.
The Yeti staggered back from the sudden loss of tension.
He lunged forward, his massive body kicking up clouds of artificial snow, but the girl was no longer there.
A magnificent Centaur—a genuine demi-human—had blurred across the stage. With elegant speed and inhuman grace, he had scooped the girl from beneath the falling giant's shadow.
On the girl's shoulders, one head now sprouted a floating pink heart—a stage-prop manifestation of affection—while the other head wore a look of intense, localized disgust.
Ronin's attention was a laser beam focused on the woman with the rod and the Centaur.
Focusing Nen in his eyes, he reached a definitive conclusion: Both were Nen users.
The woman, Abaki, felt like a standard human, albeit one with refined aura control. The Centaur, however, intrigued Ronin. He suspected the creature's lower body was entirely a Conjured construct.
The aura profile on the horse-half was denser and more vibrant than the human-half, yet the integration was seamless. It wasn't a clumsy transformation; it was a highly specialized Hatsu that functioned with mechanical precision.
Interesting, Ronin mused. Using Conjuration to replace missing limbs or augment the body into a mythological form.
He hadn't seen many such applications. In Heavens Arena, the crippled fighters usually relied on external prosthetics and developed their Hatsu in different directions. This was a rare, holistic approach to body-mod Nen.
The play continued.
The tension was expertly balanced with moments of slapstick and heart. Various performers with physical anomalies took the stage, each displaying a unique trait that was woven perfectly into the narrative.
The woman with the rod, Abaki, was the only "normal" human in the cast.
Her fishing rod became the central theme of the second act. After "finding" the right line, her ability was conceptualized as the power to "hook anything."
She "hooked" the Yeti's missing companion—a tiny, thumb-sized woman—out of the air.
She "hooked" the Two-Headed Girl's deepest, most secret desires out of her heart.
The play turned the fishing rod into a metaphor for human connection, ultimately using it to "hook" and expose the audience's own prejudices and hidden malice toward the "freaks" on stage.
The integration was masterfully handled. Even though the rod's power was portrayed as divine, the audience accepted it because of the raw emotional truth the performers projected.
It was a world-class performance.
Ronin found himself forgetting his mission for a moment, genuinely swept up in the tragedy and triumph of the circus.
"I'm officially a fan of the Macabre Menagerie," Neon whispered, her eyes shining with tears even as she wore a wide, heartfelt smile.
"Let's hope there's a troupe left to be a fan of," Shizuku noted in her usual blank tone. She seemed entirely unmoved by the drama.
Neon pouted and nudged her.
The stage lighting shifted again for the grand finale. Abaki "hooked" a headless new body from the void and presented it to the Two-Headed Girl.
Ronin's jaw dropped.
In a flurry of movement and light, the two heads literally detached, each landing on a separate neck and occupying two independent bodies.
How the hell did they pull that off?
The audience was stunned into a standing ovation. Thunderous applause and cheers of "Encore!" shook the theater walls.
The entire cast assembled for a final bow as the curtain fell.
The house lights came up. The clown returned to shepherd the crowd out, and theater staff began guiding the VIPs toward the exits.
Ronin was still processing the ending. Even with his Sharingan, he hadn't seen the trick.
Did Abaki's rod really possess that kind of reality-warping power?
Or was the Two-Headed Girl a high-level Nen user herself? Someone whose disguise was so perfect it fooled even me?
He felt a surge of professional curiosity. He wanted to talk to them.
But if he solved the mystery, the magic of the performance would die. Maybe it was better to let the "separation" remain a cherished memory of a perfect show.
As the crowd rose, Ronin stayed calm. He knew Ryan Glas was about to move, but now wasn't the time to strike.
The timing had to be perfect.
Before leaving his seat, Ronin subtly dropped a kunai beneath his chair.
He also pulled out his crystal ball. He had memorized the aura signatures of Abaki and the Centaur during the show.
Now, even outside the theater, he could use the Telescope Technique to monitor them at any moment.
If things turned south, the kunai under the seat would act as his Flying Raijin coordinate. He could teleport back into the heart of the building in a millisecond.
As he walked toward the exit, he noticed that no cleaning crews were entering the hall. Instead, the performers were reappearing on stage, looking toward the VIP balcony with a mix of anxiety and hope.
They were waiting for their patron's praise.
They had no idea that Ryan Glas wasn't looking at them as artists, but as new additions to his private morgue.
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