The question, asked with such genuine confusion, was perhaps the most terrifying thing Bruto had heard all day. It meant the man who had just dismantled them with the casual brutality of a force of nature had forgotten the name of the prince he'd supposedly betrayed. This wasn't defiance; it was erasure.
"H-he… he is the sixth son of the Tedoruka Family," Bruto repeated, as if saying the name louder might make it register. "One of the most powerful syndicates on the continent. They control… everything. Shipping, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, political campaigns. Lord Saro oversees their… special acquisitions and personnel. People like you."
"People like me," Kevin echoed, his voice devoid of inflection. He looked at his hands, then around the ruined room, as if seeing the ghost of a past life in the shattered glass. "A 'special acquisition.' A piece of equipment that developed a mind of its own and walked off the shelf."
He stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. The movement made the wounded men flinch.
"Tell Saro Tedoruka this," Kevin said, his voice now cold and precise, each word a carefully measured drop. "The equipment he remembers has been scrapped and recycled. Its schematics are outdated. A new model has been independently fabricated. It does not recognize his ownership, his authority, or his forgiveness. His 'forceful methods' will be met with… incompatible chemical reactions. I suggest he invests his resources in more stable assets."
He walked over to the pile of confiscated weapons, picking up a sleek, custom pistol. He examined it with a dispassionate eye, then, with a surge of Shu, he coated the barrel with his Nen. He didn't crush it. Instead, he focused, and the hardened steel warped, twisting into a perfect, useless knot around his fingers. He dropped the mangled metal with a clatter that echoed in the silent room.
"That's a demonstration," Kevin said. "Of transformation. I don't just break things anymore. I change their fundamental nature. Tell him to consider what that could mean for his 'everything.' Now, get out. Clean up your mess on the way. If any of you, or anyone connected to you, enters my line of sight again, the transformation won't be applied to inanimate objects."
He didn't need to elaborate. The message was in the knotted gun, in the shattered faces, in the absolute, terrifying control he had exhibited.
The exodus was faster this time, fueled by raw terror. Men half-dragged, half-carried each other, stumbling over the debris they were too afraid to properly clean. Bruto was the last to limp out, casting one final, horrified glance at Kevin, who was now standing by the window, his back to the room, looking out at the city as if the preceding violence had been a minor interruption.
When the door clicked shut, Kevin let out a long, controlled breath. The performance was over. The cold anger was real, but the clinical control had been a necessity. He had to establish a deterrent powerful enough to make Saro think twice, to make him recalculate the cost of retrieval.
He pulled out his phone. The text to his secure transport was simple: "Compromised. Extract now. Service entrance."
Then, he opened a secure app and typed a message to his one underworld contact in the city, the informant who owed him for the non-lethal formula: "Need dossier: Saro Tedoruka. Known associates, operational habits, rumored Nen capabilities, psychological profile. Top priority. Payment in tailored counter-agents or cash."
He shouldered his go-bag, leaving the ruined room and the knotted gun behind. As he moved silently down the service stairs, he processed the new data. Saro wasn't just a spurned employer; he was a proud, powerful scion who viewed Kevin as property. That kind of mindset made a person predictable in their escalation—first persuasion, then intimidation, then focused, professional force. The Ritz family had been the intimidation. The next wave would be cleaner, harder.
Kevin stepped out into the damp alley behind the hotel. A beat-up delivery van with mismatched panels was idling, its driver a shadow behind tinted glass. He slid the side door open and got in without a word. The van pulled away, merging into the endless river of Yorkshin's traffic.
As the glittering skyline receded in the rearview mirror, Kevin allowed the stern mask to slip. A frown of deep concentration took its place. The past wasn't just chasing him; it had a name, a face, and vast resources. Passing the Hunter Exam was no longer just about his future; it was about securing the only credential that could grant him a measure of immunity from the Tedoruka's reach. And the meeting with Mito in Nancha City had just become exponentially more critical. Whatever information Mito had about his origins might be the key to understanding—and ultimately severing—the chains Saro still believed were attached.
The van drove east, toward the mountains and the gathering storm. Kevin closed his eyes, not to rest, but to plan. The next phase had begun: a strategic retreat to higher ground, to gather intelligence, forge alliances, and prepare for the war he hadn't chosen but was now determined to win.
The aftermath in the hotel room was a symphony of pain and hushed panic. As Kevin's footsteps faded down the hall, the tension didn't break; it condensed into a cold, sick dread. These were hardened men, used to dealing out fear, not wallowing in it. The sheer, effortless dominance Kevin had displayed wasn't just a beating; it was a systemic dismantling of their reality.
Leon, his body throbbing but his mind sharper than ever, was the first to move. Ignoring the groans around him, he scrambled on his hands and knees towards the knotted pistol Kevin had left behind. He picked it up, the cold, warped metal a tangible testament to the impossible. This wasn't superhuman strength; it was something else—a violation of physics, a quiet demonstration of a power they had only heard whispers about. Nen.
"Shut up, all of you," Leon hissed, his voice cutting through the whimpering. He held up the twisted gun. "Look at this. Really look at it. We weren't sent to lean on some uppity chemist. We were sent as a snack for a monster. Saro Tedoruka didn't tell us that. He fed us to it."
The others fell silent, their eyes fixed on the ruined weapon. The implication was clear: if he could do that to tempered steel, their bones were tissue paper.
Bruto, cradling his injuries, let out a wet, painful cough. "We have to report… we have to tell them what happened."
"What do we tell them?" Leon shot back, the prophecy poem burning a hole in his pocket. "That we got our faces kicked in by a kid who then tied a gun in a knot with his bare hands? That he told the sixth son of a Ten Dons family to 'wash his neck'? Do you think that report makes us look competent, or just paints a bigger target on our backs for both him and Saro?"
The room lapsed into a terrified silence. They were caught between an unscalable cliff and a vengeful sea.
Leon saw the opportunity, the "choice" the poem had offered. Spit out information and fall into unchanging decay, or break free from shackles and look towards the farther blue sky.
He made his decision.
"We do what he said," Leon stated, his voice firming with resolve. "We pay for the damages. We pay triple. We settle his hotel bill. We do it quietly, efficiently, and we leave no trace of complaint. Then, we go back to our Boss."
"And then what?" one of the men moaned.
"And then," Leon said, locking eyes with Bruto, "we deliver a very carefully worded report. We say we made contact. We conveyed Saro's message. The subject, Kevin, was… uncooperative. Highly uncooperative. He refused the offer and made it clear he considers all prior ties severed. He is not the person described in the initial briefing. He is… dangerous in a way that requires specialized attention far beyond our pay grade. We recommend the family reassess the viability of retrieval versus the potential cost."
It was a report designed to do two things: save their own skins by highlighting the unexpected threat, and subtly advise abandoning the pursuit. It was the first step in "breaking free from shackles."
Bruto, despite his pain, was still a family lieutenant. He understood the politics. After a long moment, he gave a slow, grim nod. "We emphasize the… transformation of the firearm. We suggest possible Nen Ability. We make it the Association's problem, not ours."
It was a coward's move, but it was the only survivable one.
An hour later, the room was empty, the financial settlement made with a terrified hotel manager. The group dispersed to seek medical attention from discreet, off-the-books clinics.
Leon, alone in a taxi headed back to his own hotel, finally pulled out the crumpled prophecy poem. In the dim light, he read it once more. Every line had come to pass with horrifying accuracy. The black envelope (the mission order), the jackal (Moreau/Ritz), the eastward journey, the minions, the defiant "beast," the physical pain, the preserved but fragile life, the collapsing lies of a simple job… and now, the choice.
He had chosen. He would file the report to protect himself and his men from Saro's blame. But he would also keep his mouth shut about the poem, about the specific, chilling threats Kevin had made. He would become a grey area, a minor player stepping back from the board.
As the taxi wound through Yorkshin's dazzling canyons, Leon looked at his reflection in the window—a bruised, weary man who had seen the edge of a world he never knew existed. The "farther blue sky" the poem promised felt less like freedom and more like a terrifying, unknown expanse. But it was better than being carrion for the beasts now circling each other—Saro Tedoruka and the alchemist who forgot his name.
Back in his hotel room, he checked on Neon, sleeping peacefully. He folded the prophecy poem and placed it in a small, fireproof lockbox. It was no longer a child's game; it was a relic from his brush with the inhuman, a compass pointing away from a war he wanted no part of. For now, survival meant becoming very, very small, and hoping the storm passed him by.
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