"Wow…" Kenji muttered as he strolled through the cracked, uneven streets of Yorknew. The city looked like Metropolis after one of Superman's brawls with Lex Luthor, burned-out cars, shattered windows, and the skeletal remains of half-collapsed towers standing like jagged teeth against the sky.
The Phantom Troupe really did a number on this place. It was a testament to their sheer, chaotic, destructive power.
Chrollo Lucilfer really wasn't playing when he had decided on this attack.
The air still held the faint, metallic scent of burned structures and a heavy, suffocating silence where the city's usual noise should have been. The remnants of a brutal, decisive assault were everywhere.
It seemed even weeks after, people were still scared to really be strolling around. It really was something.
Civilians forced to rebuild, families displaced, lives shattered, it was a sad thing to see, it left a bitter taste in his mouth, a familiar pang of empathy.
But at the end that was all he could do, feel empathy for them because at the end none of this was his responsibility, he didnt have to help, didnt have to intervene, while it was sad he wasnt the person responsible for all this, nor did he have connections so there wasnt anything he could do and he wasnt going to mop around like he could have done something.
He wasn't some whiny protagonist who spent chapters blaming himself for tragedies he had no part in. His presence here was an unplanned circumstance, a random drop-in from his system.
He wasn't responsible for the Troupe, or for the mafia's collapse. He had no connection to any of these people. They were strangers in a world that wasn't his, and his sadness at the situation would just be a waste of time, something useless, a self-indulgent emotion.
Besides, it's not like he knew the timeline he was dropped in at the start of his quest. He had simply happened to land in the right place at the right time—or, perhaps, the wrong place at the wrong time.
He had arrived after the chaos. So why should he feel any lingering regrets? Why burden himself with a past he couldn't change?
He just went about his time, and that's why he came here in the beginning. Sightseeing.
For the next two days, he simply wandered, sightseeing among the rubble. Yorknew was damaged, yes, but still beautiful in its own way. He saw patches of defiant green in the cracks of concrete, vendors selling food from makeshift stands, and the hopeful faces of children playing among the ruins. He enjoyed those brief, peaceful days—a welcome reprieve from the Fights to climb the tower, after all, it was good to relax everyone in a while, all was good until trouble, as it so often did, found him.
Was he cursed?
Kenji sighed as he stared at the dozen armed men encircling him in a half-collapsed alley. They were a motley crew, all dressed in cheap, ill-fitting suits, their faces a mix of arrogance and desperation.
Their clothes were stained, their shoes scuffed, and the air around them reeked of cheap booze and unwashed bodies. They brandished a collection of handguns, rusty knives, and even a lead pipe, their weapons a sad testament to their diminished status.
The mafia. Low level Goons at that.
"How did I even get dragged into this?" he thought, a flicker of genuine confusion crossing his face. For once, he could honestly say he hadn't done anything. He hadn't picked a fight, insulted anyone, or stirred up trouble. All he'd done was spend money freely from his winnings in Heaven's Arena.
Apparently, that was enough. He'd won millions, an absurd amount of money, and his casual spending at a few upscale restaurants and a boutique clothing store was like ringing a dinner bell for every scavenger in the city. The mugs surrounding him were clearly under the impression that he was a soft, rich mark, an easy score in their desperate game of survival.
After the Ten Dons were assassinated by Illumi Zoldyck, and the Phantom Troupe plundered the mafia's treasures, the underworld had descended into chaos. With their coffers drained and their leadership beheaded, the surviving gangs had turned to street robbery, extortion, and "fund-raising" to survive. To them, Kenji, with his expensive clothes and carefree spending, looked like an easy, fat target, a walking ATM machine ripe for the taking.
"Hand over everything, and maybe we'll let you live," one thug sneered, a pistol held with a shaky but determined hand. Bravado in his eyes. He clearly was already used to this kind of street work, he was puffing himself up like trying to be a predator, trying to act like a lion.
Kenji didn't bother answering. He simply moved. One moment, he was at the edge of the circle, the next, he stood in the center, like a ghost.
To the mafiosi, it must have looked like teleportation. Their eyes widened, their bravado evaporating in a puff of cold shock, replaced by bone-deep terror.
Even stripped of chakra and magic, his raw stats as a High-Class being dwarfed human limits. By comparison, Killua's base physicals would put him somewhere around high-mid class. Someone like Netero, though, that old monster? Easily Peak-High or even brushing Ultimate Class. Anyone who could throw punches faster than sound, who could move so quickly they created a vacuum of air, wasn't human anymore. They were a force of nature, an existence on an entirely different level.
He really hoped he didn't meet that man anytime soon.
Kenji lashed out. His first move was a punch, almost invisible, it was like a tremor in the air. The first man, the one who had spoken, suddenly gasped, his knees buckling as a sharp, precise strike to a nerve cluster on his leg sent him crumpling. Before he could even fall, Kenji's hand was on his head. There was a sickening, wet crack as he twisted the man's neck, a sound that echoed unnaturally in the narrow alley. Instant kill.
His next moves were a blur of controlled, fluid violence. He backhanded a man to his left, the force of the blow turning the thug's body into a projectile. He slammed through a brick wall of a building with a sickening crunch, leaving a human-shaped crater and a twin spiderweb crack in the masonry.
A knife-wielder lunged, and Kenji caught the blade between two fingers, a cold, casual gesture that seemed to frighten the man in question as he tried to back away. With a flick of his wrist, the knife snapped, the jagged remains flying backward and lodging in the man's throat, silencing his terrified scream.
The remaining thugs panicked, a collective gasp of terror escaping them as they realized they weren't dealing with a mere tourist. Their bravado gone, they unloaded their guns, the alleyway erupting in the deafening roar of gunfire.
The air was filled with the frantic buzz of bullets. Kenji didn't dodge, he didn't run. He simply walked forward. Each bullet that came at him seemed to hit an invisible barrier, a flicker of energy that caused them to deform and fall harmlessly to the ground.
He moved towards them as he started to weave through their numbers, his movements the deadly hail like a river flowing around rocks, each movement precise and effortless. He dismantled the group in seconds, a whirlwind of motion and death. Broken bones, shattered spines, crushed throats, and less than a minute later, only one man remained.
The leader.
He was on the ground, pale as death, a dark stain of piss soaking his trousers. He was no longer a man; he was a monument to utter, soul-shattering terror. He scrambled backward on his hands and knees, whimpering as Kenji loomed over him, a dark shadow in the alleyway, grabbed his skull, and squeezed until the man screamed.
"Now, how about we talk?" Kenji's voice was flat, cold, devoid of any emotion. It stripped the man of the last vestiges of his dignity.
The man babbled, blubbering excuses, his words a frantic, unintelligible flood of pleas and apologies. Kenji crushed harder, bones audibly grinding under his grip. "Talk." He wanted to know what was going on in the underworld.
Finally, he broke. Words tumbled out in a flood. The mafia's old order had collapsed with the Ten Dons gone. The fragile alliance was shattered. Now each family clawed for dominance in a bloody free-for-all. His gang, the Crimson Hand Syndicate, had once sat at the head of that alliance. But under their new leader, they aimed to take Yorknew for themselves.
"Don Vittorio Ferro," the man whispered, trembling. "The Bloody Palm."
Kenji's eyes narrowed.
The thug went on, voice quivering, a newfound terror replacing his fear of death. Vittorio wasn't just another mafioso. He had a power. Magic the man said.
With a person's blood, he could form a contract that bound them absolutely. Fail to complete the contract, and within twenty-four hours, the victim died in unspeakable agony. The man shivered, describing the one time he'd seen it used, his gaze distant and horrified.
"A guy just… looked at one of the boss's girls the wrong way," he muttered, his eyes unfocused, a horrifying memory playing out behind them. "Vittorio made a contract, and the poor bastard folded in on himself like a pretzel, bones breaking, organs liquefying, blood pouring out of every hole until he… burst. It was a bloody mess, he was gone, just gone like that."
Kenji's frown deepened. Nen. Definitely Nen. A Nen user at the head of a criminal organization. That raised the stakes from a simple mugging to a potential conflict with a truly dangerous foe. The mafia were always dirty, but if their new leaders were Nen users, that changed everything.
When the thug had finally spilled everything useful, Kenji loosened his grip. Relief washed over the man's face, a momentary, blissful flood of reprieve. He scrambled to his feet and bolted, gasping for air and sanity—
SHINK!
His head rolled from his shoulders before he made it ten steps, his body collapsing into a limp heap.
Kenji watched the corpse fall. He had promised to let him go. He never promised to let him live. The man was still mafia trash, still a willing cog in the machine. Fear of his boss didn't erase the pride in his voice when he spoke of his Syndicate. Letting him go was a liability to innocent people. He was just another parasite, and Kenji had no qualms about putting him down.
Kenji brushed the blood from his hand, turning back toward the city. His thoughts lingered on Vittorio Ferro and the other would-be dons.
He could leave Yorknew now. Walk away, keep sightseeing, and focus on his quest.
But they had attacked him first. And he killed their men.
And if he was being honest with himself? He was itching for a fight. The calm he had so carefully cultivated over the past few days, the peace he had found wandering the ruined streets, had been shattered.
Now, an itch beneath his skin was begging to be scratched, a need to move, to strike. After the self-imposed torment in the Vampire ID and the brutal fight against the yokai in his own world, he hadn't really had a good fight again, even his ID was not challenging him at the moment. But here, in a world where he was a ghost, where his actions had no consequences for his family, he could finally let go.
A smile tugged at his lips. "Well… no sense holding back this time."
The Bloody Palm, the Crimson Hand, and whatever else mafia gangs were in Yorknew… they had just earned his attention.
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