BOOM!
A deafening roar echoed as the water encasing the hotel building erupted into a massive geyser.
Simultaneously, the temperature of the water skyrocketed.
The boiling heat didn't last long, nor did it manage to vaporize the massive volume of water, but the initial flash-boil was devastating.
It was all caused by the bomb dropped from the toy airplane.
No fire. Just a concussive blast and a blinding flash of superheated energy.
On the 18th floor, Chrollo realized the danger the moment the water appeared.
But it was too late to stop the Super Fortress from dropping its payload. In the split second before impact, he grabbed Kortopi and shouted for Pakunoda to retreat deeper into the room.
The water smashed through the shattered windows, flooding the space instantly. But drowning wasn't the immediate threat.
Chrollo knew exactly what his stolen ability did.
Even if he closed Skill Hunter now, the bomb was already in motion.
The bomb dropped by Super Fortress was triggered by impact—specifically, the impact of the rushing water!
"Seal it!" Chrollo commanded Kortopi.
At the same time, the pages of his book flipped rapidly to a new ability.
Kortopi slammed his left hand against the wall and his right hand into the air. Copies of the wall materialized instantly, stacking up like building blocks behind the retreating trio to block the incoming deluge.
They were encased in a makeshift bunker of conjured concrete.
But the hasty construction left gaps. Pressurized water began to spray through the cracks, threatening to fill their sanctuary.
Chrollo released Kortopi and fired his own aura at the cracks.
As the aura left his body, it transmuted into sticky, white threads.
Spider Binding. An ability stolen from the Shadow Beast known as Spider.
The webs plugged the leaks, sealing the room tight.
Safe for the moment, Pakunoda crouched down and touched the water pooling on the floor.
"It's warm!" Her expression darkened. She realized instantly why Chrollo had prioritized sealing them in.
Outside, the geyser began to collapse. The water, no longer contained by the technique, crashed down and flooded the surrounding streets.
Like a burst balloon, the water carried everything within it outward in a violent wave.
But Ronin was moving through the chaos with ease. He was encased in a shark-shaped construct of water, cutting through the turbulent flood.
Water Style: Water Shark Bullet Jutsu.
A technique favored by Kisame Hoshigaki. By encasing himself in the water shark, Ronin could move at high speeds through the water and even glide through the air.
Amaterasu and Susanoo were massive chakra drains. More importantly, they consumed his ocular power—his "pupil power."
His eyes were still spinning in the Mangekyō pattern.
His ocular power would recover slowly, but Ronin knew he couldn't keep spamming his right eye's ability, Amaterasu. He needed to switch to his left eye.
Overusing one eye could lead to damage.
Or worse—blindness.
Everything seemed to align with the mechanics of the Mangekyō Sharingan from the Naruto manga. The big question was whether fusing with more Scarlet Eyes would fix the damage.
If it did, then collecting enough eyes might unlock the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
If it didn't... then blindness was a very real timer ticking down on his power.
According to the manga, the Eternal Mangekyō required transplanting the eyes of a close blood relative—usually a sibling.
And if the transplant failed, there were no second chances.
But Ronin was different.
He could keep fusing. With over twenty pairs of Scarlet Eyes still out there, Ronin felt confident he could find a match.
And if he couldn't find a match... he would create one.
The Water Shark didn't just contain Ronin. It also held Kurapika's corpse.
But something felt wrong. The weight was off.
As Ronin sped through the water, the "corpse" in his arms began to shrink.
A layer of Nen appeared on the body, and with it, the form began to contract rapidly.
Ronin flared his aura into Ken instinctively.
Is someone tampering with the body?
Before the thought could fully form, his arms were empty. The corpse was gone.
In its place, floating inside the water shark, was a small, exquisite figurine of Kurapika.
It looked exactly like the corpse that had been lying on the pavement moments ago—bloodied, battered, dead. But now, it was a toy.
Ronin froze.
A mix of relief and fury surged in his chest.
Kurapika's "death"... it was a performance.
A play staged specifically for him.
Ronin remembered telling Kurapika about the bottleneck on his eyes. He had explained that fusing with more eyes might not be enough; he needed an extreme emotional stimulus to break through.
He had explained that his eyes evolved through emotion.
Intense, traumatic emotion was the key.
He hadn't considered that a secret worth hiding from Kurapika. In fact, he had hoped Kurapika might help him brainstorm a solution.
He just hadn't expected Kurapika to be this proactive.
He recalled Kurapika's question from the night before: "If you were forced to relive that day, do you think you could break through the bottleneck?"
He had been planning this since the moment he heard about the bottleneck!
At the time, Ronin hadn't known the answer. Now he did.
The trigger wasn't reliving the massacre of the clan. It was the death of Kurapika—the one person he couldn't bear to lose now.
That was the key that unlocked the Mangekyō.
Over the past three months, Ronin had genuinely come to see Kurapika as family in this strange world.
That bastard.
Whoosh!
Ronin burst out of the water, landing on a dry patch of street that the flood hadn't yet reached.
The water shark dissipated. Ronin clutched the small figurine tightly in his hand.
He glanced back at the hotel, then cast the Shadow Clone Jutsu. The clone immediately sprinted off toward Neon's location to ensure her safety.
Meanwhile, Ronin turned his gaze to a figure being washed toward him by the floodwaters.
It was Isori.
But before Ronin could strike, a figure leaped from the top of a nearby building, descending like a hawk.
It was Silva Zoldyck!