Ronin stepped forward a few paces. Once he got close to the building, he had another idea.
The clinic was about 20 meters long, 15 meters wide, and roughly 8 meters tall—a two-story structure.
Ronin placed his hand on the wall, closed his eyes, and carefully sensed. His aura flowed along the wall and spread down into the ground, wrapping the ground—about ten centimeters deep—with Shu.
Soon, Ronin stopped.
The first five meters were easy—his aura could cover it without trouble. But pushing farther, the aura cost increased, and the Shu effect weakened.
It seemed five meters was the limit of his Enhancer aura's effective range.
Beyond that, the aura he released started to "leak," and the leakage worsened with distance.
Ronin let go.
A brilliant idea clicked. He formed a cross seal, and with three puff-puff sounds, three identical clones appeared beside him.
Then he cast another jutsu—Ultralight-Weight Rock—on the building.
With the three shadow clones in position, Ronin and the clones spread out to the four sides of the clinic. All four placed their hands on the building at the same time. Aura poured out, forming Shu along the ground, gradually connecting into a continuous wrap.
Once that was complete, Ronin exerted a little force. With the building's weight reduced by Ultralight-Weight Rock, he ripped the whole structure up from the ground.
"Your turn!"
Shizuku, seeing Ronin suddenly become four people, rubbed her eyes hard, wondering if she'd misseen.
Based on Ronin's fighting style, he looked exactly like an Enhancer.
But such fine, precise cloning shouldn't belong to an Enhancer—it looked more like something a Conjurer would do.
And then he lifted the entire building like it weighed nothing, and her shock deepened.
Still, she moved quickly. The moment the building rose, Blinky was already in her hands.
"Here we go—suck in the entire clinic," Shizuku said, flipping Blinky's switch.
A powerful suction burst from Blinky's mouth. The raised building, facing the vacuum, rapidly shrank under the pull—then vanished into Blinky in an instant.
Afterward, the vacuum disappeared again, and Shizuku's usually flat expression showed a small smile.
Ronin dismissed the shadow clones.
At that moment, Kurapika and Neon approached. But before they got close, Shizuku snapped into a fighting stance—clearly mistaking them for cleanup-squad elites.
"Don't. Allies," Ronin warned.
Shizuku looked at the masks on Kurapika and Neon, then at Ronin's mask, and finally nodded in understanding.
"We should leave. The cleanup squad won't give up so easily," Kurapika agreed, same conclusion as Shizuku.
"Target is Spence's manor," Ronin said, explaining Shizuku's condition. "Once we kill him, Shizuku will come with us."
"Isn't Spence dead?" Damian had walked over too. "I know where his manor is. Get in—this info is free."
They all got back into Damian's old sedan.
The car threaded through the irregularly jammed vehicles on the street. When needed, Damian didn't care about scratches—he simply shoved cars aside to force a path.
As they broke out of the street, they saw plenty of cleanup squad members ahead, guns raised and guarding.
But when they saw Ronin inside the car, they didn't even fire. They simply parted and let the car through.
It made the stones Ronin had prepared in his hand pointless.
He'd been ready—if they shot, he was going to show them what an Enhancer's "throwing stones" looked like.
Too bad.
"This is how people survive in Meteor City," Damian said with a sneer. "But you've heard that line, right?"
"We accept anything… but don't expect to take anything from us," Kurapika said softly.
"Exactly." Damian glanced at Ronin in the passenger seat. "You're an outsider—no way to hide that. If you keep staying here, you'll face endless pursuit, and it can even spill out beyond Meteor City."
"Doesn't matter," Ronin said indifferently.
Shizuku might act like a beacon, drawing attackers toward him.
But Ronin wasn't afraid.
Meteor City had plenty of lunatics, but it wasn't all lunatics.
For the truly crazy ones, if you act even crazier than they do, they become the ones who fear you.
Just like the Phantom Troupe.
When Ronin was weak, they attacked him thinking they could kill him anytime.
But once he became strong enough to make them wary, the roles reversed.
Ronin lived by the same line: he rejected nothing—but no one was allowed to take from him.
He'd already tasted what it was like to sit in a Ten Don's seat.
So what about an elder's seat in Meteor City?
The car sped through the streets. Meteor City wasn't as barren, miserable, and ruined as Ronin had imagined.
Along the way were decent-looking shops, even schools, hospitals, and a cleanup bureau.
"Meteor City has developed for over a thousand years. It's long since stopped matching the outside world's records," Damian said with a sigh as he lit another cigarette and cracked the window to blow smoke out. "Before, the world chose Meteor City to be the dump. Now Meteor City chooses to be the world's dump."
Ronin sensed deeper meaning in Damian's words, though he didn't fully grasp it.
They drove deeper in. Ronin saw a church-like building in the distance—and beyond it, enormous trash mountains.
He wondered if that was where Chrollo and the others grew up.
Past that area, there were fewer buildings, but not less trash. Tall trees began to appear.
The car left the main street and entered a narrower path.
"Spence's manor is deep in this woodland," Damian explained. "After living around garbage heaps too long, the people at the top always want to move away from the trash mountains. This forest—rare in Meteor City—is their favorite hiding place."
"The air really is better here," Neon said, looking out the window—though it wasn't very convincing.
Since arriving, she hadn't taken her mask off once.