The ice pressed against Yuzuki's left side had already begun to warm, but the pain beneath it remained stubbornly sharp.
He sat on the edge of an examination bed with dark medical tape wrapped around his ribs and his injured arm resting in a sling. Every breath had to be kept shallow, while the torn muscles around his lower spine made even small changes in posture uncomfortable. Bisky stood behind him, carefully working the tension out of the muscles surrounding the injury without placing pressure on the spine itself.
"Hold still," she warned. "You have already done enough damage for one day."
"I am holding still."
"You have moved three times."
"I'm adjusting my viewing angle."
"You're obsessing," Wing said from beside the wall. His attention was also on the television mounted across the treatment room, though he was making a better effort to appear calm. "Your eyes need rest after the Viktor match."
"If I don't watch this, I might enter the semifinal without knowing which one of them I'm fighting." Yuzuki narrowed his uncovered Six Eyes as the two remaining quarterfinalists entered the arena. "Neither Chrollo nor Orion is the kind of opponent you prepare for after the match begins."
Kastro stood near the foot of the bed with his arms folded. "Orion has survived by studying Nen users who were trying to kill him. Chrollo collects their abilities."
Yuzuki shifted the ice against his ribs. "A man who copies what he learns against a man who decides what others are allowed to learn."
Bisky's fingers paused against his back.
"Then watch carefully," she said. "But do not use Gyo through the screen until your head starts bleeding again."
"No promises."
Her thumb pressed into a particularly painful knot beside his spine.
Yuzuki winced. "Understood."
Orion Drake had spent most of his adult life hunting people whose abilities were meant to remain secret.
The underworld called him the Hunter of Hunters. He was not physically overwhelming like Viktor Richter, nor did he possess the disturbing presence of Hisoka. His danger came from patience. Orion watched how an opponent breathed, which hand activated a condition and where their aura shifted before a technique appeared. Once he understood enough of an ability's structure, Hunter's Archive allowed him to build a weaker version for himself.
The copies were never equal to the originals. Orion could not ignore category limitations, reproduce years of experience or escape conditions his own body could not satisfy. He could also maintain only a handful of copied structures at once. Too many conflicting demands would slow his thoughts and damage his control.
Those weaknesses had rarely mattered. Most Nen users relied on one primary ability, perhaps supported by a few related techniques. Orion needed only to understand the central rule before turning it against them.
Chrollo Lucilfer was different.
The Phantom Troupe leader stood across the arena in a simple black outfit, his dark hair combed away from the cross on his forehead. He held Skill Hunter open in his right hand, his expression calm enough to make the screaming crowd feel distant.
Orion studied the book instead of Chrollo's face.
'He must hold it open while using the abilities inside, unless the bookmark changes that condition. His right hand will be occupied. Watch the left.'
The referee lowered his arm.
"Begin!"
Chrollo turned a page.
Three small aura projectiles formed over his left palm and flew toward Orion's chest. They were quick, but their path was direct and their aura density was low.
Orion moved aside from the first and watched the second closely enough to understand the release. Hunter's Archive responded, building the structure inside his mind.
He raised one hand and fired his own projectiles. His version was slightly weaker, but it struck Chrollo's remaining shots and scattered them before they could reach him.
The crowd reacted immediately.
Chrollo did not.
He calmly turned to another page. A pale mist spread across the arena, thick enough to hide his outline and disturb ordinary aura sensing. Orion recognised the pattern, reproduced a thinner version and pushed it outward, using the competing flows to reveal movement inside the fog.
Chrollo appeared at his side with his steps made unnaturally light by a separate movement ability. Orion blocked a short strike, observed the rhythm beneath the footwork and added that structure to his archive as well.
For the first minute, the match seemed to favour Orion.
Chrollo produced a simple decoy. Orion copied it and used two false images to surround him. Chrollo changed the direction of an incoming object with another minor ability. Orion reproduced the pattern and sent a broken tile back toward him. Every new page appeared to give Orion another tool.
The audience began to believe that Chrollo was being forced through his book.
Orion began to believe it too.
'He has more abilities, but quantity means nothing if I understand each one before he can use it properly.'
He pressed forward, combining the light-footed movement with the sensory fog. A decoy approached from Chrollo's left while Orion attacked from the right. Chrollo avoided both, though his retreat carried him closer to the arena boundary.
Orion's confidence grew.
Then his foot landed half a step late.
The mistake was small enough that most spectators would not have noticed it. Orion did. The movement ability required a relaxed flow through his legs, while the aura projectiles demanded a sharper release through his upper body. Maintaining the sensory mist divided his attention further, and the decoy required a completely different form of control.
Each copied technique worked.
They simply did not work well together.
A dull pressure began to build behind Orion's eyes.
Across from him, Chrollo turned another page.
"You learn quickly," Chrollo said. "That must usually make your opponents very cautious."
Orion dismissed one of the decoys and tightened his guard. "You don't sound cautious."
"I am."
Chrollo released another harmless-looking utility ability, this one altering the path of a thrown coin. Orion watched the curve but refused to copy it. His archive was already crowded, and he had begun to understand that Chrollo was not revealing these pages out of desperation.
He was choosing them.
Orion looked back over the opening exchanges. The projectiles, fog, movement and decoys did not support one another naturally. Their activation rhythms conflicted, and each demanded that his aura be handled in a different way.
'He isn't trying to overwhelm me with abilities. He's filling my head with the wrong ones.'
The realisation came too late to erase the strain already spreading through his concentration.
In the treatment room, Yuzuki leaned forward despite Bisky's hand immediately tightening on his shoulder.
"Chrollo is feeding him," he said.
Kastro watched Orion abandon one copied technique and strengthen another. "With weak abilities?"
"With inconvenient ones." Yuzuki kept his explanation simple, his eyes following every page turn. "They don't fit together. Orion can copy their structure, but he has to keep changing the way he controls his aura. Chrollo is making him carry several fighting styles at once."
Wing adjusted his glasses. "And every time Orion discards one, he must decide which of Chrollo's abilities is safe to lose."
"That's the trap," Yuzuki said. "Chrollo decides what looks valuable."
Orion reduced his archive to two active structures and steadied his breathing.
The pressure behind his eyes eased, but the damage had been done. Chrollo now understood how long it took him to copy, how quickly he could discard a structure and which kinds of abilities he valued most.
Chrollo placed the bookmark against the current page.
A small seal appeared on the arena floor near his feet.
Orion's attention sharpened.
The aura pattern resembled a spatial marker. Chrollo stepped away from it, then vanished when Orion attacked, reappearing beside another marked point several metres away. The movement was limited, but it allowed him to reposition without crossing the distance normally.
It was exactly the kind of ability Orion needed.
Chrollo had already shown that he could fill the arena with false information. A movement anchor would allow Orion to escape traps, reset the distance and approach from an angle Chrollo could not easily control.
'That one matters.'
Orion released the copied mist from his archive and focused on the spatial marker. He watched Chrollo place another seal and followed the aura connection between them. The structure was more complicated than the earlier abilities, but understandable.
Hunter's Archive formed its version.
A pale marker appeared beneath Orion's right foot.
For the first time in the match, Chrollo smiled.
It was barely noticeable, but Orion saw it.
His instincts screamed.
Chrollo closed Skill Hunter around the bookmark, allowing the selected ability to remain active while freeing his hands. He touched a fragment of stone with one palm and placed a second mark on another piece of debris with the opposite hand.
Orion recognised the symbols.
Sun and Moon.
The two marks would detonate when brought together.
Orion immediately tried to erase the copied spatial marker, but his strained concentration did not release it cleanly. The structure remained linked to his aura for a fraction longer than it should have.
Chrollo moved toward the first seal.
Orion stepped back.
The copied marker beneath him reacted.
Only then did Orion understand the real condition. The marker he had reproduced was not merely an escape point. It could also be recognised by the original network as a valid destination.
By copying the exact structure, Orion had placed himself inside Chrollo's arrangement.
"You wanted the safest ability," Chrollo said quietly.
Orion forced his aura against the marker, trying to break the connection. "You showed it because you knew I would."
"I showed it because you had already discarded the abilities that might have helped you survive it."
Chrollo activated the marked route.
Orion's position shifted violently.
He was not teleported into solid stone or placed inside an unavoidable killing blast. Chrollo had no need to risk disqualification or expose a more dangerous combination. Orion was pulled toward the edge of the arena, where the marked debris had already been arranged into a narrow corridor.
The moment he appeared, two fragments carrying opposite Sun and Moon marks collided behind him.
The explosion struck the ground rather than Orion's body, but the force destroyed his footing and drove him forward. His injured concentration failed to maintain the movement structure, while the remaining copied techniques interfered with his attempt to recover.
Chrollo was waiting at the end of the corridor.
Orion turned his fall into a roll and tried to fire the copied aura projectiles. His release came late. Chrollo stepped inside the attack, struck his wrist aside and drove a precise blow into his chest.
The air left Orion's lungs.
Before he could reset his stance, Chrollo swept his supporting leg and placed one hand against the back of his neck. Orion struck the ground hard enough for his vision to flash white.
Chrollo did not follow with a killing blow.
The referee began the count.
Orion tried to rise, but the different structures inside his archive had collapsed into disordered fragments. His aura surged through the wrong pathways, and his arms refused to support him.
By the end of the count, he remained on one knee.
"Knockout!" the referee announced. "The winner advancing to the semifinals is Chrollo Lucilfer!"
The arena erupted.
Orion lowered his head and allowed the medical team to approach. The defeat did not feel like being overpowered. Chrollo had given him every decision he thought he wanted, then arranged the match so that each correct-looking choice carried him closer to the same ending.
As Chrollo walked past, Orion looked up at him.
"You could have used stronger abilities from the beginning."
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you?"
Chrollo glanced toward the cameras above the arena.
"Because I wanted to know which page you would choose for yourself."
The treatment room fell quiet.
Kastro stared at the screen as the updated bracket placed Chrollo's name opposite Yuzuki's.
"He controlled the entire match," Kastro said. "Even when Orion believed he was forcing him to reveal abilities."
"He did more than that," Wing replied. "He made Orion trust the wrong information."
Yuzuki remained seated with one hand pressed against the tape surrounding his ribs.
The Six Eyes were built to gather information. They allowed him to identify patterns, conditions and weaknesses faster than almost anyone else. Against most opponents, seeing more meant gaining an advantage.
Chrollo had just demonstrated that information could be chosen, arranged and poisoned before it ever reached the person studying it.
'He doesn't need to hide everything from me. He only needs to make sure I see what he wants me to see.'
On the television, Chrollo reached the entrance to the recovery tunnel. Before disappearing into the shadows, he turned toward the main broadcast camera.
He raised Skill Hunter and slowly turned one unread page.
His dark eyes remained on the lens for a moment, as though he knew exactly which screen Yuzuki was watching.
Then he closed the book and walked away.