Chapter 56: Neon's Short-Term Prophecy
Time flew by.
Several months passed in the blink of an eye. By late August, Yorknew City was bustling with activity.
Crowds flocked to the prosperous metropolis for the upcoming auctions.
The crime rate was skyrocketing, but so was the GDP, making the mayor beam with joy.
As for crime, the Mafia controlled everything anyway. If things got out of hand, the Mafia would be the first to panic.
After all, the Yorknew Auction was orchestrated by the Ten Dons. If people were too scared to attend, the Mafia bosses—eager to launder their dirty goods—would lose the most.
The Phantom Troupe entered Yorknew in waves.
Roughly in groups of three.
This time, they had two objectives:
Find and kill Ronin, the thorn in their side for months.
Acquire the game Greed Island.
The massacre in Mordin City hadn't deterred the Bounty Hunters or Blacklist Hunters. In fact, the carnage only drove the bounties on the A-Rank Phantom Troupe even higher.
Of course, those daring to hunt the Troupe now were the real deal.
This constant pressure annoyed the Spiders.
Normally, after a job, they would split up completely. This time, they only separated briefly before regrouping for Yorknew.
Uvogin was having a terrible time.
His burns had healed, but they left massive scars covering his body. Combined with his hair, which hadn't fully grown back, he looked both hideous and ridiculous.
Sensitive about his appearance, he was prone to sudden, violent outbursts.
Even Nobunaga, his usual partner, was getting sick of his temper. Thankfully, Chrollo had assigned Machi to their group. Her presence kept Uvogin somewhat in check.
Because Machi would literally tie him up if he acted out.
Uvogin still hadn't broken free from her threads. What infuriated him most was that she often ambushed him while he slept.
Meanwhile, his hatred for Ronin grew daily.
If they met again, he swore he wouldn't lose like last time. He wouldn't give Ronin the chance to use his special abilities.
After multiple clashes, Uvogin was certain of one thing: Hand seals were the restriction for Ronin's special attacks.
Stop the hands, stop the jutsu.
In a pure contest of Taijutsu, Uvogin believed he would win.
He refused to believe Ronin could improve faster than him in three months. Uvogin had been training like a madman, pushing himself 200 times harder than an average person.
No one could match his growth rate. Not even Ronin.
"Don't even think about dueling him one-on-one. You'll die," Machi ruthlessly popped his bubble.
Even without seeing Ronin, just looking at Uvogin's confident face told her what the idiot was thinking.
He hadn't learned his lesson from nearly being roasted alive.
Machi worried that if Ronin used even a simple bait tactic, this fool would charge straight into a trap without hesitation.
Are all Enhancers this simple-minded? Machi sighed internally.
"I know!" Uvogin grumbled, shaking his reattached arm.
It was a patchwork job by Machi and Franklin. To him, it felt extraneous.
The arm had a number tattooed on it—Franklin's mark. It even contained some of Franklin's Nen.
A car drove past the three Spiders walking on the roadside.
The driver was a muscular young man who looked like trouble. In the passenger seat sat a pink-haired girl, and in the back was a blonde girl wearing a hat.
Uvogin instinctively glanced at the car, sensing something. But seeing no familiar faces, he scratched his head in confusion.
Honk!
The horn of a heavy truck interrupted his thoughts. By the time the truck passed, Uvogin and his group had vanished from the road. The truck driver glanced in his mirror, puzzled.
Did I hit them?
He didn't brake. If he hit them, maybe they got lucky and got isekai'd to another world.
The driver turned up the volume on his radio audiobook about otherworldly adventures and kept driving.
Unbeknownst to him, the three Spiders were now sitting on top of his cargo, hitching a ride into the city.
"That was Uvogin's group. Just the three of them?"
Inside the car that had passed Uvogin, the driver dispelled his Transformation Jutsu, revealing Ronin's face.
Neon held a mechanical pencil. She waved it in the air, leaving a trail of glowing Nen text floating in the space before them.
"The Frost Moon shall sink together with the Scarlet."
"I don't get it," Neon shrugged, dispelling her ability.
She had just performed a Short-Term Prophecy targeting Uvogin. It was valid for only one day, but the content was cryptic.
"Frost Moon corresponds to November—the 11th month. Uvogin is Spider #11," Ronin interpreted immediately. He turned to Neon, revealing his crimson Sharingan. "Scarlet obviously refers to me."
"Sink together... does that mean mutual destruction? Dying together?" Kurapika analyzed the second half.
"It likely means an ambush. Those three walking openly are bait. Or, Uvogin is prepared to trade his life for mine," Ronin added.
"Probably the latter," Kurapika nodded gravely. "Will he trigger Post-Mortem Nen? That's a curious variable."
"Hard to say. But after being burned alive, his hatred for me is intense. If he can't kill me or torture me, that obsession might turn into a curse upon his death," Ronin analyzed.
Enhancers were prone to tunnel vision—like Gon.
Ronin wasn't afraid of the probable, but he respected the possible. To crush Uvogin, he needed absolute certainty. He had to eliminate every variable before delivering the final blow.
"Then we shouldn't touch him today. No rush. There will be plenty of opportunities," Kurapika said.
Neon's Short-Term Prophecy was only valid for 24 hours.
Come September 1st, she could perform a full monthly prophecy for Uvogin. However, without his full birth data (Date, Time, Blood Type), she would still be limited to these short, fragmented predictions.
This was the evolved form of Lovely Ghostwriter: Active, short-term divination without requiring full bio-data.
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