Kisho gestured to Amos. Amos eased his breathing, gave Kisho a slight nod, and then stopped all movement.
Kisho smiled at Amos, yanked down the nen beast that was tugging at his hair while sitting on his shoulder, and handed it over.
Amos took it, poked the face of Kisho's Tanuki-Tail Fiend, and muttered, "Yours is way more obedient than mine."
Kisho laughed.
His figure flashed past the corner like a shadow, charging toward that examinee.
Examinee No.140's expression tightened.
The instant he saw the white-haired boy appear at the corner, he raised his arm. A crescent arc flashed in his hand as the scimitar he gripped whistled toward Kisho with unstoppable force and speed.
A cold glint flickered through Kisho's eyes.
With a crisp "clang—", the scimitar's attack was effortlessly intercepted by the triangular spike the boy suddenly drew, and knocked to the ground.
No.140's pupils shrank, his expression turning grave.
Unbelievable.
He had trained with the scimitar for three years. The speed and strength of his throw were exceptional, yet this boy had knocked it down with such an unremarkable weapon.
Kisho sighed, "Pretty impressive."
He shook his slightly numb wrist. Though No.140 didn't have nen, the power behind that scimitar truly wasn't to be underestimated.
In other words, even with "Ken," if he got cut, he would still be injured.
But being evaluated like that by a boy far younger than him made No.140's face darken instantly.
With a slight lift of his wrist, the scimitar that had fallen to the ground suddenly bounced up, flew back toward him, and landed in his palm.
A thread, thinner than a hair, ran through the handle of the scimitar—that was why he could retrieve it from the ground.
"Fishing line… no, even thinner. If I hadn't used 'Ryu,' I wouldn't have seen it at all."
Kisho murmured inwardly, then spoke aloud:
"I thought you could throw it out and catch it perfectly at the same time. Using a string to reel it back… tsk, somehow that feels a bit cheap."
No.140: "..."
He was just about to retort when the white-haired boy took a single step toward him—
Just one step, and he was already at his side.
No.140's eyes widened as he slashed out a streak of blade-light—
With a sharp "shhk," a drop of blood fell to the ground.
Kisho stood there blankly.
The moment the blade brushed close to his arm, he seemed to hear a harp note—so faint it was nearly imperceptible, yet it trembled straight through his soul.
"A harp… sound?"
His gaze moved painfully slowly, as if time itself had been stretched into endless length.
Only when his eyes fell upon his arm did Kisho see it—a shallow cut on his forearm, carved by No.140's scimitar.
He frowned.
—No matter how shallow, it meant he was injured.
For Kisho, that was nearly impossible. There was no way he was so slow that he couldn't even dodge an attack from someone without nen.
Yet this thought seemed to drift through his mind for millions of years, until at the far end of some distant timeline, countless thoughts converged into a single point, and the node snapped.
"Dong— ding-dong~"
The harp strings were plucked. The harp strings were snapped.
Kisho's pupils contracted, as if someone returning from the depths of time had finally drifted back into reality.
No.140 was already a meter away, clutching the shoulder pierced through by the triangular spike, staring at Kisho with a gloomy expression.
Kisho stared back in silence.
No matter how slow his reaction was, it was impossible that he hadn't even seen how this man retreated a full meter right under his nose.
So it wasn't his problem—
It was those two strange harp notes!
"…Again!"
No.140 shouted coldly. With his movement, two crescent arcs spun through the air toward Kisho.
Kisho didn't advance. Instead, he stepped back.
Because he heard it again—the harp sound that seemed audible only to him.
In his vision, the two scimitars, mid-flight toward him, halted at a certain point—perhaps not exactly halted, but the time it took them to pass through that point was infinitely prolonged.
One second. Two seconds—
At last, the blades struggled past that node and sliced by Kisho's side.
"Clang!"
"Bang!"
One was knocked away by Kisho and embedded deeply into a nearby wall; the other was struck heavily to the ground.
When the scimitar lodged in the wall destroyed a rune half-covered by glowing moss, the harp sound that had been rising and fading in Kisho's mind completely disappeared.
Kisho silently withdrew his gaze from the wall and pressed his temple.
His The Fantasizing Musician, after a long silence, stirred once more.
A new sheet of music seemed to be taking shape within the book. But with only two or three notes recorded, the entire movement was shrouded in mist, utterly indistinct.
"Still want to keep fighting?"
Kisho picked up the scimitar from the ground, twirling it around his fingertip as he looked at No.140. Amid the man's darkened mood, he spoke slowly:
"Give me your Tanuki-Tail Fiend, and I'll let you go."
No.140: "..."
Silently, he pulled out his Tanuki-Tail Fiend from his pocket, gave it a light squeeze, then tossed the dark-purple gem toward Kisho.
After catching it, Kisho threw the scimitar back out, embedding it into the wall within No.140's reach.
"Kid, tell me your name. I'll reclaim this humiliation someday!"
No.140 said coldly.
Kisho blinked. "My name is Mire Eros."
Amos, behind the corner: "..."
No.140 stared at him coldly, then said, "…I'll remember it. I'll come find you again."
Kisho watched as No.140 walked away. A few minutes later, Amos stepped out from behind the corner and shot him a fierce glare.
"You're such a good friend, huh."
Kisho replied solemnly, "Nothing much, nothing much. Providing a good friend with opportunities for self-improvement is exactly what a good friend should do."
Amos sneered. "Well then, thank you so very much."
Kisho waved his hand. "No need to be polite, no need to be polite~"
After the banter, Amos looked at the wound on Kisho's shoulder and hesitated before asking slowly:
"Do you… feel anything strange?"
"Huh?" Kisho's eyes widened abruptly.
Seeing his expression, Amos knew he had noticed it too.
He flipped his comic book toward Kisho. After just a few panels, Kisho's expression turned serious as well.
From the perspective in the comic—centered on No.140—it was perfectly clear.
At certain moments during the battle, Kisho had stood completely motionless.
Blank-faced, as if spacing out.
Kisho fell silent. After a while, he asked, "Was time stretched? Or frozen?"
"It should be that around a certain moment—or within a certain area—the flow of time was altered to be different from elsewhere."
"There was acceleration, and there was deceleration. But all of it targeted you."
Amos rested his chin in his hand, pondering for a moment before staring at Kisho and asking gravely:
"—Did you, without realizing it, get hit by some kind of nen ability… or restriction?"