The bounty itself did not worry them much.
Anyone who could accept the job on the Hunter website had to be an amateur. Licensed professionals were barred from taking contracts on other Hunters. Ronin knew exactly what those amateurs were worth. Real Nen users among them were rare; anyone who had already awakened usually passed the exam without much trouble. Ordinary people completing a hit on him was pure fantasy.
"The objective is to capture the Fourth Prince," Kurapika confirmed one last time before the operation.
"Understood." Ronin handed over the four prepared scrolls.
Every asset Kakin could still move through the underworld answered to Kurapika. Capturing Tserriednich rather than killing him served two purposes. First, the prince himself was the fastest route to the exact location of the Scarlet Eyes. Second, no one could guarantee that killing him would not trigger the same transfer ability that had saved the Third Prince. Even with partial understanding of that technique, residual countermeasures remained possible.
Whether capture itself would activate the ability was unknown. Once the prince was in hand, though, Ronin could simply walk into his mind and take every answer he needed.
Kurapika distributed the scrolls to the four people already in position.
Xiyou sat in his room feeling thoroughly irritated.
He had intended to move against Ronin. Then some idiot posted a public bounty for an assault on the Hunter website. Whoever placed that request clearly did not know Ronin had already become a licensed professional. Accepting the contract would immediately trigger one of the Hunter Bylaws:
Hunters shall not treat fellow Hunters as prey. Hunters who commit heinous crimes are exempt from this protection.
Approaching Ronin without accepting the contract was no better. With a sensitive bounty hanging open, any contact risked the exact complications Xiyou preferred to avoid.
Had he been exposed?
The suspicion rose and died in the same breath. He had given no one any reason to mark him.
He contacted Beyond.
"Find someone else. I can't take this job."
"No one else's ability fits as cleanly," Beyond answered. The turn of events was more troublesome than he had expected. Xiyou was the type who treated rules as absolute. Looking the other way was impossible unless the price rose high enough to override principle—and that price sat outside Beyond's current budget.
"Then I'm done." Xiyou refused to waste another day in Kakin. Showing up at all had already been a courtesy.
"Understood. Wait until tomorrow morning. I'll have new instructions."
Xiyou was silent for several seconds.
"Fine."
Hisoka received an anonymous letter containing only two items.
The first was a detailed personal file on Ronin. One line stood out that Hisoka had never considered: Ronin had passed the Hunter Exam and now held a professional license.
The second item listed the exact hotel and room number where Xiyou was staying.
Since Greed Island they had learned almost nothing about Ronin's movements. They knew only that he had gone to the Etri Kingdom and spent time digging through the Mahavi Ruins. Everything after that had been a blank. The revelation that the boy had quietly obtained a Hunter License destroyed the plan to force Xiyou into an attack through a formal contract.
Staring at the letter, Hisoka felt a sharp wrongness.
"This doesn't add up."
He was with Chrollo at the time, so the information reached the leader immediately.
"Xiyou's presence here is not an accident," Chrollo said.
"Then what's the goal?" Hisoka rubbed his temples.
Did the sender already know the nature of Chrollo's ability? Otherwise there was no reason to deliver Xiyou so neatly. Viewed that way, the entire setup looked like a test: could Chrollo defeat Xiyou and take the ability?
Yet that theory collapsed under the second detail. Warning them that Ronin was now a licensed Hunter was the same as pointing out that Hisoka's bounty had backfired. Without the bounty, Xiyou might have approached Ronin on his own, and the Troupe could simply have waited in the background like the oriole behind the mantis.
Instead the letter handed them Xiyou's address, forcing the choice: go take the ability themselves. And once they moved, did Ronin become the new oriole waiting above them?
The web felt complicated.
Chrollo was already pulling on his coat.
"We're going to meet Xiyou."
He was certain the sender could not be Ronin. Ronin had no way of knowing the details of Xiyou's ability; Chrollo's own information had arrived through pure chance. Or what had seemed like chance. The more deliberate the arrangement looked, the more certain Chrollo became that Ronin was not the architect. If Ronin already possessed that information, the two of them would have been fighting already instead of still circling each other inside Kakin.
Xiyou's sudden appearance, and the person moving pieces behind him, simply interested Chrollo more than the risk.
"Should have done this from the start," Nobunaga said, hand tight on his sword.
Chrollo alone might not be enough. The full remaining strength of the Spider, however, was seven against one. The advantage was theirs.
The only real concern was keeping Xiyou alive. Chrollo needed the ability. Death would erase it with better than ninety-percent certainty. The remaining chance—that the power would crystallize into post-mortem Nen—was too rare and too unpredictable to plan around.