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The ship exploded at sea.
The butler was the calmest about the whole thing. Looking at him, it was obvious he'd already guessed this would happen.
Ronin's mind was still processing the chakra and memories transmitting back from his Shadow Clones.
Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu really was a god-tier technique. Even being destroyed from that far away, it still fed the energy and experiences right back to him. Honestly, there had to be some kind of space-time physics making that work.
His clones hadn't been the only ones on that ship. There had been a whole batch of people leaving Meteor City, carrying big dreams for the future.
It just proved that Meteor City's extremists had burned their motto into their very bones: "We reject nothing, but take nothing from us." They didn't care what it cost to enforce it.
Maniacs.
That was Ronin's ultimate verdict on these hardcore locals.
Miria's people were scheduled to hit Meteor City on September 24th. With the butler's help, they'd be taking over operations for Ronin and Kurapika for the time being.
How it actually panned out? Honestly, Ronin couldn't care less.
Building some kind of "Infinite City" here was just a passing thought. He had zero concrete plans to actually pull it off.
What did surprise him, though, was the break-in before dawn. Someone slipped into the villa and tracked down the Shadow Clone posing as Ryan.
The fight kicked off instantly.
A thin needle whipped toward the clone on the bed, only to be blocked by a thin blanket kicked up at the last microsecond.
The fabric only bought a fraction of a second, but that was all the clone needed to roll out of bed and launch a counter.
The intruder was Illumi.
When his needle failed to connect, a flicker of confusion crossed those giant, dead-cat eyes of his.
Good reflexes, was Illumi's immediate thought.
A split second later, a hail of Wind Style chakra bullets ripped toward where he was standing.
Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere.
Just like the Phoenix Flower technique, it was a breath-based attack. But unlike the fire jutsu, Vacuum Sphere fired compressed wind chakra. The projectiles were insanely fast.
By exhaling in rapid, short bursts, the user could essentially turn their mouth into a submachine gun.
The clone watched the barrage turn the target into Swiss cheese—only to realize it wasn't meat. It was an afterimage.
The assassin had repositioned the exact moment the attack launched.
Out of all the night-crawlers they'd dealt with over the last couple of days, this guy was easily the biggest headache.
As that thought crossed its mind, the sharp screech of a thousand birds filled the room. Blinding lightning flared in the clone's hand, flooding the room with harsh blue light—and illuminating the attacker.
In the brief gap between the wind jutsu ending and the lightning starting, Illumi had already closed the distance. His hand was flattened into a rigid blade, veins bulging grotesquely under the skin. It didn't even look human anymore.
And that freakish hand was currently thrusting straight for the back of the clone's heart.
But the Chidori was ready. The clone spun on its heel, sweeping the crackling blade of lightning directly toward Illumi's ribs.
This kind of suicidal, mutually-assured-destruction fighting style? Illumi absolutely hated it.
He aborted the lethal strike, shifting his arm to chop at the clone's elbow joint instead. At the same time, his other hand flicked out, sending a fresh cluster of silver needles darting toward the clone's vital pressure points.
This isn't Ryan.
Illumi had figured that out the second the Chidori sparked to life.
The "Nen bullets" earlier could have been explained away as an Emission ability. But transforming aura into raw lightning? That was textbook Transmutation.
To master both categories to that degree simultaneously, the guy would have to be some kind of Specialization freak. But according to his intel, Ryan was almost certainly a Manipulator.
So who the hell was standing in front of him wearing Ryan's exact face?
The answer wasn't hard to guess.
Ronin!
Which meant the Ronin on the exploding ship was a fake. The real one had never left Meteor City.
So... was the guy in front of him the real deal?
No.
Illumi made the call in a split second. The way this guy fought—trading lethal blows with zero hesitation—didn't match how a real, living person operated.
His sharpened hand chopped into the clone's arm, deflecting the lightning strike. But the volley of needles was immediately swatted out of the air by a kunai the clone yanked out with its free hand.
Even as a Shadow Clone, it still had the Sharingan's kinetic vision.
Every muscle twitch Illumi made was tracked perfectly. But even with the visual advantage, trading blows at point-blank range made the clone realize exactly how dangerous this guy was.
And at this range, the clone finally ID'd the attacker.
Illumi Zoldyck!
The assassin.
So who bought the contract?
Obvious answer. Chrollo was the only one who fit the bill.
Ronin was actually a little surprised the Zoldycks took the hit. After all, Silva and Zeno were currently on Kurapika's payroll to slaughter the Phantom Troupe.
Gotta respect the Zoldyck hustle. Playing both sides of the board. Weren't they worried about a conflict of interest?
Thinking this, the clone skipped backward, creating a gap between them. Its hands blurred through a new set of seals.
The elbow Illumi had chopped? Totally fine.
As an Enhancer, even a clone could pump out the exact same raw aura volume as the original body. To tank Illumi's strike, all it had to do was focus more aura into the joint.
Ryu—the advanced technique of shifting aura flow in real-time—was basically muscle memory for Ronin at this point.
But he'd also noticed something else. Illumi's hand-to-hand moves were pure assassination fundamentals, not Nen abilities.
Those flying needles were the real threat.
Lightning sparked and spread across the clone's body. Lightning Style Chakra Mode went hot.
When he saw "Ronin" retreat, Illumi immediately braced for a mid-to-long-range attack. But his main priority was just shaking this annoying double.
Killing the clone was pointless. It wouldn't do any real damage to the actual target.
Wasting time trading hits here was stupid. Better to locate the real body and finish the job.
But watching the guy's hair literally spike up with electricity told Illumi that disengaging wasn't going to be easy. And if he got pinned down here, the real Ronin would eventually show up. A two-on-one fight was bad business.
Wait.
All his previous intel and planning had been based on the assumption that Ronin was gone, and the guy in the villa was Ryan.
If Ryan was a fake... then Ronin's main body had to be somewhere close by.
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