Ronin used Reverse Summoning to yank himself out of Kakin and drop straight into the giant snake's nest in the ruins.
The cost was brutal.
He had to summon the serpent first, then split off a shadow clone, send it into the snake's mouth, and seal the clone so the transfer wouldn't simply dissolve it into raw energy. Every extra step burned more chakra. Rest was a luxury he didn't have. He needed Shizuku and the others back now. A single shadow clone would not keep them alive if Beyond decided to finish the job.
The one loose end that still bothered him was Machi.
Sealing her inside the Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness with a clone had been the best option at the time. The information that came back when the clone dispersed was incomplete. A Rasengan had smashed into her abdomen. After that her condition was unknown. When the clone moved in to finish her, her Nen threads activated on their own. They wrapped her in a dense cocoon that the clone could not break and then crushed the clone against the inner wall of the dome.
Beyond's people were already heading that way. If Machi was still breathing they would either take her or leave her in the rubble like trash.
A second clone performed the Summoning. The clone waiting inside the snake's mouth answered with Reverse Summoning and pulled Ronin to Shizuku's position.
The whole chain was clumsy and expensive. The aura he had left after the fight with Beyond was already scraped thin. He cracked the Yin Seal again—half-empty itself—and let the stored energy flood back in.
Shizuku and the two with her were on their feet, all of them marked by the fight. Behind Shizuku a figure lay bound on the ground.
Office blouse. Shoulder-length gold hair. Sharp features now ruined by swelling and blood. Unconscious.
Pakunoda.
The Troupe's memory reader. The one Chrollo kept closest.
Ronin felt the mismatch at once. Pakunoda was support, not a fighter. Even if she burned everything she had, she should not have been able to hold Shizuku's group for long—not this version of Shizuku, the one who had spent more than half a year training in the ruins. Someone else had been here.
Questions could wait.
He nodded once and pulled the large cloth from his pocket.
"Wait."
The voice came from behind him.
A man stepped out of the treeline, doing his best to look casual. The act did not survive the wounds. His face was swollen. Blood had dried in ugly patches across his clothes. Whoever he had run into had not been gentle.
Ronin recognized him the instant the man came into view.
Xiyou.
Zodiac. The one whose ability Chrollo had stolen. Almost certainly part of Beyond's crew as well.
The earlier fighting had already shown a crack between Xiyou and the rest of that team. Ronin did not trust the crack. Beyond had fifty extra years of practice at this kind of game. A wounded man walking out of the woods with an open hand could still be bait.
The cloth did not pause. It swallowed Shizuku, her two companions, and the bound woman on the ground in one motion.
"You need something?" Ronin's tone stayed flat.
Whatever Xiyou wanted, interest was limited.
"A number." Xiyou did not waste time. "And thanks."
The corner of Ronin's mouth ticked up. He did not refuse. Killing Chrollo had returned Xiyou's own ability to him. That counted as a real debt, whether Ronin cared about collecting it or not.
Xiyou saved the number, then lifted his head and looked Ronin in the eye.
"Watch yourself. Beyond is a problem. Once he decides you're worth the effort, he does not let go."
"I know."
The short exchange with Beyond had already told him enough. The man had not gone all-out. He had barely used his own Hatsu—just the swap and raw Nen application. Even that had been enough to make the fight ugly. The shape of the power felt uncomfortably close to Ronin's own. Ronin knew exactly how annoying a Specialist with ninjutsu could be. Add decades of planning and the picture got worse.
Xiyou gave a short, serious nod, offered a brief cupped-hand farewell, and vanished into the trees without looking back.
Ronin watched the spot where he had disappeared. He had expected a second request—take me with you, get me out of Kakin. The way Ronin had arrived was not subtle. Xiyou had seen it. There was also the lingering suspicion that the man had been helping Shizuku's group from the shadows.
He let it go.
The summoned snake dissolved. Reverse Summoning activated again. Ronin was gone.
At the ruins Beyond had not left.
He stood over the two people who had survived the fight with Ronin.
One was Hisoka, who had stayed at the edge of the battle the entire time and only sent his antennas in. He looked almost fresh.
The other was the girl they had dragged out of the giant Nen-thread cocoon.
Machi.
Compared with Hisoka she looked broken.
The Rasengan had nearly erased her. The threads had stitched the wreckage back together without care for shape or function. She looked like a rag doll someone had tried to repair with black string.
The Nen rising off her was not ordinary aura.
It was black.
Post-mortem Nen.
Her own threads had hauled her back from the edge of death. The result was ugly. Recovery would take time.
The quality of the Nen told a different story.
She was already stronger than the version that had fought beside Chrollo.