The years that stretched between my accidental awakening of Nen at nine and the cusp of my twelfth birthday weren't a simple passage of time; they were a relentless, grinding blur of effort and discipline, etched into my muscles and aura like the grain in Kenji's carefully planed wood. Under his exacting, often silent, supervision, mastering the very bedrock of Nen – Ten and Zetsu – became second nature, an undercurrent to every waking moment. Maintaining the invisible shroud of Ten around my body was like breathing, a continuous, subtle exertion that was required from dawn until I finally collapsed into sleep. It fortified my form, prevented aura leakage, and was the foundation for everything else. Zetsu was the opposite, a readily available cloak, a deliberate cessation of my aura's flow. Kenji drilled its application relentlessly, teaching me to snuff out my presence in an instant, becoming, in essence, a void in the world's perception. He was stern about its dangers, however. "It conserves energy," he'd remind me, his voice low, "and makes you unseen. But if something finds you while you're in Zetsu, if you're caught before you can release it, you're vulnerable. Utterly defenseless. Choose when to use it wisely."
My physical training, already intense, escalated significantly during this period. Knowing I was a Manipulator settled deep within my consciousness, bringing with it a cold, pragmatic assessment of my likely combat strengths and, more importantly, my weaknesses. Raw, head-on brawling wouldn't be my natural domain. I wouldn't possess the sheer, brute-force enhancement of my father, nor the terrifying, versatile destructive power some Transmuters could wield. My path, I knew, lay in control, in strategy, and in survivability. Speed, stamina, agility, and evasion became my obsessive focus. I pushed my small, growing body mercilessly. I ran circuits around our property, the familiar path blurring through sweat and exhaustion, my lungs burning, forcing my legs to keep pumping long after they screamed for rest. Kenji devised brutal dodging drills, throwing stones or swinging lengths of rope, forcing me to move, to react, to not be there when the impact came. Scaling the gnarled oak trees at the edge of the yard and the rocky outcrops along the coast wasn't just exploration anymore; it was practice, honing my dexterity, my grip strength, my ability to navigate difficult terrain quickly and silently. Strength wasn't neglected entirely – Kenji ensured I continued building practical power through chores and specific exercises like lifting heavy timbers or hauling water buckets further each week – but my personal, burning drive was centered on becoming a ghost in a fight, able to outlast opponents through sheer resilience and elusiveness. The grueling, relentless effort was fueled by the stark, often brutal, images from Anon's HxH memories: the impossible durability of Enhancers shrugging off blows that would kill a normal person, the terrifying speed and deadly aura constructs of skilled Transmuters and Conjurers. In this world, being merely 'average' in physical capability felt like signing my own death warrant. I needed every edge, every fraction of speed, every ounce of stamina I could possibly wring from this body.
Seeing my unwavering dedication, observing the solidification of my Nen basics, and perhaps judging me ready, Kenji began to introduce the more advanced applications of aura control. Shu came first, the technique of extending Ten around objects, coating them in a layer of aura to enhance their durability and sharpness. I'd practice wrapping rocks, sticks, and eventually tools in my aura, feeling the subtle shift in their weight and balance. Ken, the full-body shield formed by combining Ten and Ren, was introduced with stern, almost grim warnings about its stamina drain. Maintaining that protective shell for even a few seconds felt like trying to hold back a physical tide, leaving me breathless and depleted. Then came Ryu, the dynamic application of aura, shifting concentration instantly between attack and defense, pooling it in my fist for a strike or shunting it to my arm to block. Kenji would spar lightly with me, his movements controlled but precise, forcing me to react, to shift my weight and aura instinctively, learning the ebb and flow of combat. He also taught me In, the technique to make my aura completely invisible to anyone not actively using Gyo. "Think of it as silencing your aura, not your presence," Kenji clarified one afternoon, demonstrating by making his aura vanish before my eyes. "It's not for hiding you like Zetsu, but for hiding your Nen. Essential for deception, for concealing an attack, a trap, or a construct until it's too late for the opponent to react." Lastly, En, the ability to extend one's aura in a sphere to sense the environment and anything within it, was introduced conceptually. Kenji demonstrated a tiny, almost negligible radius of his own En, describing the sensation of feeling everything within its sphere, but stressing the years, often decades, required for any significant mastery. "Don't worry about this for a long, long time," he advised, his aura retracting. "Just know it exists, and what it does."
His wisdom, often delivered in quiet moments between drills, accompanied every new technique. "Over-reliance on Hatsu, on your personal skill, is a common trap for new Manipulators," he'd say while I struggled to maintain Ken for the required time. "Without these basics – Ten as your vessel, Zetsu as your cloak, Gyo as your sight, Ren as your power source, Ryu as your balance – your Hatsu becomes a clumsy club, easy to counter. Master these fundamentals, and your Hatsu becomes a precise instrument, a deadly extension of your will." Or, while practicing Ryu during our light sparring, "Speed is useless without awareness. Always know your surroundings, where your opponent is, where potential threats lie. Use Gyo. Use your eyes."
Then, Kenji introduced what he simply called the 'Hatsu Foundation Training'. It was a rigorous, almost brutal daily rotation designed not to teach Hatsu abilities themselves, but to strengthen fundamental aura control and capacity across all six Nen categories, regardless of my innate type. "Knowing you are a Manipulator is only the first step in understanding your potential," he explained, sketching the familiar hexagon in the dirt. "But true mastery of Nen requires understanding its full spectrum, building competence even in categories that aren't your strongest. It makes your overall aura control more robust." Each day focused intensely on a specific Nen category, with a set of exercises progressing through various levels of difficulty. Failure to complete a level meant repeating it the next time that category's day came around in the cycle. It was a constant, humbling reminder of how much raw power and control I still lacked.
The training cycle began with Enhancement Day. The goal was simple, but the execution brutally difficult for a Manipulator. Level 1 required using Shu on a single river stone, imbuing it with enough reinforcement to withstand impact, and then using it to shatter 1000 other, unenhanced stones without the imbued stone breaking. My arms would tremble, my aura flicker, and inevitably, my stone would crack or crumble long before I reached the thousand mark. My record, despite months of effort, remained stubbornly below 500 shattered stones. The sheer density of aura required felt alien to my nature, a constant struggle against my natural affinity.
Next was Emission Day, focused on projecting aura outside the body, separating it from my form. Level 1 demanded projecting a stable aura ball, maintaining its cohesion and form, for a distance of 20 meters without it dissipating into the air. I'd stand in the yard, hand outstretched, focusing my will, watching the faint, visible sphere of my aura wobble and shrink, fizzling out prematurely before reaching the target distance. I was reaching closer now, maybe 15 meters on a good day, but the full 20 felt like an impossible chasm, a battle against the inherent dispersion of detached aura.
Then came Transmutation Day, dedicated to changing the properties of my aura. This was my weakest category, the furthest removed from Manipulation on the Nen hexagon, and the difficulty was palpable. Level 1 involved shaping the aura pooled on my fingertips into the runic shapes of numbers 1 through 10 within one minute. It required fine, delicate control, forcing my aura to mimic specific forms, a counter-intuitive process for an ability designed to impart will rather than change form. I was getting faster, the shapes less wobbly, able to reliably hit 1 through 7 or 8 before time ran out, but the later numbers, requiring more complex manipulation of the aura's form, remained elusive under pressure.
Manipulation Day followed, my native category, yet still a struggle for precise control. Level 1 involved making the divination leaf from the water test trace specific, precise geometric patterns on the surface of the water using only my aura. Squares were less wobbly than they used to be, circles smoother, but making it follow a complex pattern without the leaf wobbling or drifting off course demanded intense concentration and fine-tuned aura output, pushing the boundaries of my innate skill.
Conjuration Day was next, focusing on creating physical objects out of aura. Level 1 was humiliatingly simple on paper: Conjure a single, tiny grain of sand and maintain its physical form for one second. Despite pouring every ounce of focus and will into the attempt, I could only ever manage a faint, formless shimmer at my fingertips, a fleeting wisp of aura that refused to solidify into physical matter. It still resulted in nothing but frustrating failure after failure, the concept of giving aura physical substance feeling fundamentally alien.
Finally, we circled back. It was a constant, humbling, grinding process, designed explicitly to build my raw aura capacity, refine my control across the spectrum, and highlight the innate strengths and weaknesses of my Nen type, regardless of whether I would ever use these categories for Hatsu.
It was during this period of relentless training, perhaps sometime when I was nearing my twelfth birthday, that the final, critical piece of my temporal puzzle clicked into place. I had known the year, of course. Anon's perfect memory, coupled with my increasing ability to read and understand the local calendar system, had long since informed me that the current year was 1987. I knew the number, I used it for dating things, for marking the passage of seasons, but I hadn't truly grasped its significance. The flow of time in this peaceful corner of the world, measured by seasons and festivals, hadn't screamed 'critical point in canon timeline' at me. The original Hunter x Hunter story, focused as it was on Gon's personal journey, rarely dwelled on specific years, sometimes mentioning months but leaving the broader timeline somewhat in the background for casual viewers. I knew what was happening, but not precisely when, relative to the events Anon remembered so vividly. Until that afternoon.
I was in the village market, sent by Mom to pick up some fresh vegetables. The usual cacophony of bartering and conversation filled the air – the scent of drying fish, ripe fruit, and the distant smell of woodsmoke. My Gyo was on habitually, subtly picking up the aura of people and goods around me. Near a stall piled high with the latest models of the popular 'Joystation' console – bulky, boxy things that felt like relics from Anon's youth, a strange blend of familiar technology and this world's unique engineering – two merchants were talking loudly, their voices carrying over the din.
"Eight billion Jenny?" one exclaimed, his voice incredulous, throwing his hands up. "For that 'Greed Island' game? Just because only a hundred copies exist?"
The other merchant scoffed, leaning back against his stall, wiping his brow with a cloth. "That's what happens when professional Hunters get involved in making things. They say some real eccentrics built it, filled it with mysteries only they understand. It's not a game for normal folk like us, it's a collector's item for billionaires." He shook his head, more in wonder at the price than understanding the item itself. "Crazy money."
My blood ran cold. The clamor of the market faded, the buzzing of the cicadas went silent in my ears. Greed Island. The name echoed in my mind, massive and unavoidable. The infamous, dangerous, Nen-infused game. Professional Hunters involved in its creation. And the detail that followed… Anon's obsessive, near-photographic knowledge of HxH lore slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, providing the missing piece. The release date of the original Greed Island game: 1987.
The year I was living in. The year I had known intellectually for months, dating letters, reading market signs, but had never connected to anything beyond the simple passage of time on Ryujinshima. Suddenly, the number screamed its significance. If Greed Island was being released now, in 1987, and I was nearly twelve… then Gon Freecss, the protagonist whose journey defined the start of the main story, wouldn't even take the Hunter Exam until 1999. He was likely only a baby right now, perhaps not even born yet, or a very young child still with his father, Ging, years away from being brought to Whale Island at age two. The main characters, the pivotal events, the catalysts of the story Anon knew so well were still years, over a decade, away from even beginning to converge on the world stage.
Twelve years. I had twelve full, long years stretching before me, twelve years before the main canon story, the chaos, the deadly encounters, and the major players even began to emerge. Twelve years of Kenji's guidance, twelve years of this brutal, grueling foundation training, twelve years to continue building my strength, my control, my understanding of this world and my place in it. The suffocating weight of urgency I'd felt since awakening Nen, the desperate, frantic feeling of being hopelessly behind Killua and Gon, eased slightly, replaced by a surge of cold, calculated determination. It wasn't a desperate race against an inevitable, approaching canon timeline anymore. It was an opportunity. A vast, invaluable window of time.
A slow, almost predatory smirk spread across my face as I looked out past the market stalls, past the mundane commerce, towards the distant, shimmering horizon, towards the wider world I knew awaited me. Twelve years. Enough time. More than enough time to build a very, very solid foundation. Enough time, perhaps, to even change the script.