Chapter 5: Post-Mortem Nen?
It was as if a movie screen had gone black, only to suddenly flicker back to life.
When Muser's consciousness returned, he found he was no longer pinned to the floor by the Pale Moon Tiger. He was standing, at attention, his nose pressed against the wall like a disobedient child.
There's a gap in my memory... I've been manipulated... by that kid?
But how? I shot him through the neck. He should be unconscious, if not dead. He couldn't possibly maintain a Manipulation ability...
Unless... unless he did it. He would have had to fight through the agonizing pain of a gunshot wound and simultaneously activate his Nen.
He's just a five-year-old brat. How is that possible?
Muser couldn't control his own body. He could only stare at the wall as his mind raced.
Even if I'm going to die, I have to get intel on his ability...
Wait. When he put his hand on my face, he fulfilled my activation requirement. I've touched him.
If I can get just one second of free will, I can attach my Rear Window Bird to him...
I just need him to let his guard down... even for a fraction of a second...
I have to be patient.
Muser cleared his mind, becoming perfectly calm. Soon, he heard a raspy, childish voice from somewhere behind him: "Come here."
Muser couldn't understand the language, not a single word.
But as the boy spoke, Muser's body pivoted on its heels and began walking stiffly toward the voice. The Pale Moon Tiger, which had been pinning him, now stood beside the boy like a bodyguard, its low, warning growl vibrating in its chest.
Muser noticed that while the tiger's one eye was matted with dried blood, the bullet wound on its skull looked... healed.
He still couldn't figure out how he had lost.
His body forced him to stop directly in front of Kai, snapping back to attention like a puppet.
"A little tall, huh?" Kai said, still in that foreign language, as he held a hand up to Muser's chest.
The next second, Muser's legs buckled, and he slammed onto his knees. Thud!
This is a powerful Manipulation ability... Muser thought, his eyes tracking to the boy's neck.
The spot where the bullet had passed through was completely healed. Just like the tiger. Aside from some faint, smeared blood, there wasn't even a scar. It was as if he'd never been shot at all.
CRACK!
A sharp slap echoed in the room, snapping Muser out of his thoughts.
Heh. Such a weak hit. He really is just a kid... Muser was unfazed, almost amused... until his expression froze.
Kai was focusing a tiny, sharp shroud of Aura around his small hand. He drew it back and slapped Muser again, this time on the other side.
CRACK!!!
The force of this slap was immense. Muser's head snapped to the side, and the entire left side of his face went numb before erupting in pain. It swelled instantly, and blood trickled from his lips.
"Are you kidding me? This is bullshit!" Kai spat, shaking his stinging hand and ranting in his strange language. "I get thrown into this world, I get chased by wolves, scared by a tiger, and then you show up and shoot me! Does it get any worse?"
"Is there any justice? Any law? I'm just a kid! I'm just trying to live! What did I do wrong?"
The more he spoke, the angrier he got. He kicked Muser hard in the shins.
He then roughly searched Muser's suit, pulling out a handful of items: the pistol, a wallet, and a phone.
The gun was empty, and Kai didn't know how to use it anyway, so he tossed it aside.
He opened the wallet. It was full of cash and several different IDs, all with Muser's photo but different names. Kai looked up at the man, who was bleeding from the mouth. "Look at you," he taunted. "Mr. Honest-Face here has quite a few aliases, doesn't he?"
Muser, unable to understand, remained silent and kneeling.
Finally, from an inner pocket, Kai pulled out a single card.
Just from the feel of it, he knew he'd found something good.
He held it up to the moonlight. His eyes lit up. "Oho? A Hunter License?" he said, flicking the card. "An unexpected bonus. Thanks for the gift. I'll be taking this. And since you've been so generous... you can have a few more as a reward. Haha."
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!
Kai hammered Muser's face with a flurry of small, Aura-laced slaps until his own hand was aching. Still not satisfied, he kicked the man a few more times.
Damn it all. He hadn't done anything to anyone, and he'd almost been killed three times. He felt like he'd go crazy if he didn't blow off some steam.
After venting, he stopped. He hadn't actually injured Muser. For one, his child's body was weak. For another, Kai knew that if he caused a real wound, the Star Marker would activate its healing ability, and that was a piece of intel he wasn't willing to give up.
Kai sat down on the floor, exhausted. "I'm beat. Tiger Bro, tag in."
He waved his hand, then turned his attention to his new prize, the Hunter License.
"Roooar..."
The Pale Moon Tiger stepped forward. With one eye a mass of clotted blood and its fur, one of the "Seven Great Beauties" of the world, it looked both terrifying and tragically beautiful.
Muser swallowed, a cold sweat on his brow.
He wasn't afraid to die, but to die here without accomplishing anything... without completing his final mission for the Prince... it was meaningless.
The tiger opened its massive jaws and lowered its head toward the helpless, kneeling man.
"This license doesn't belong to you, does it?"
The boy's voice cut through the air. But this time, he spoke in the world's common language.
Muser's eyes darted to the fangs hovering inches from his face. He decided to play along. "How did you know?"
Kai snatched the phone off the floor and hurled it at Muser's head.
"I'm the one asking the questions," Kai said, his voice flat. He'd discovered that when "Kai-Wolf" successfully activated Star Marker, he had naturally absorbed Muser's knowledge of the local language and alphabet. Communication was no longer a problem.
He already had a theory. When he'd heard that gunshot in the distance, he'd felt that familiar, hot-and-cold aura drill into his heart. He'd concluded: whenever something dies near him, he absorbs that energy, and it hurts.
In other words, this man had killed someone right before coming here.
Either this man was a Hunter, or the person he killed was. Kai had just guessed the latter. He had no intention of explaining that, though.
The tiger padded over, picked up the phone in its mouth, and dropped it back in Kai's lap.
Are you a cat or a dog? Kai thought, annoyed.
Suddenly, a thought struck him. He didn't know if this world had GPS, but it was better to be safe. He tore the back off the phone, ripped out the battery, the SIM card, and the memory card. He threw them all, one by one, out the porthole and into the dark sea.
"The license is mine. You can take it," Muser said, his voice strained. "Who are you? Where is the woman's son?"
"Like I wouldn't take it if it wasn't yours?" Kai replied, his expressionless. "Who is this woman? And who is this son?"
"The son... is you," Muser said, watching Kai's face for any flicker of recognition.
He got nothing.
Was I wrong? Muser's gaze shifted to Kai's clothes: the oversized, ill-fitting shirt and the pants held up with a rope, the cuffs rolled up a dozen times. They were makeshift.
"Here's my guess," Muser said slowly, his voice low. "The woman... in her dying moments... she was filled with so much rage and despair that her child would also be murdered."
"So, after she died, her body produced a powerful Post-Mortem Nen. It latched onto you... parasitized you... and forced you to grow, turning you into what you are right now."
(End of Chapter)