The shadow clone instantly collapsed into pure energy and rushed back into Ronin's body.
His eyes narrowed.
He had already expected that Chrollo's return would come with counters prepared specifically for him. The unique nature of the shadow clones had certainly been factored into those calculations.
From the way the clone had vanished, the key was clearly that phone.
Chrollo had already turned the camera toward him—testing, no doubt, whether the real body was also a clone.
The move completely exposed the detection method. The more openly it was displayed, the more troublesome Ronin found the ability. It felt as though any existence the phone locked onto could be identified as a clone in an instant, and that Chrollo also possessed the means to dispel those clones directly.
Most unexpected of all was how little Nen the process seemed to cost.
Maintaining the phone's continuous existence, however, would limit the number of other abilities Chrollo could freely use. Unless the bookmark technique was already under his control, his role in the coming fight would largely be reduced to that of a living demon-revealing mirror.
No one could be certain Ronin would not deploy another shadow clone later. With the ability now revealed, traps could be built around it.
Even as the thought formed, En registered an anomaly directly overhead.
Ronin's eyes spun into the Mangekyō pattern. Susanoo erupted around him in a single breath and drove a massive armored hand upward.
Chrollo's phone captured the skeletal warrior, yet Susanoo did not dissipate.
The upward grab smashed straight into a dense barrage of Nen bullets that had already torn through the ceiling.
Franklin.
The Troupe's approach against him mirrored the earlier trap set for Xiyou. The critical difference was the protective shell Ronin could condense outside his own body—Susanoo. They had discovered that layer during the Yorknew assault.
When the bullets failed to halt the armored arm, Franklin's body was already leaping backward clear of the strike.
In the same instant a dense web of Nen threads shot toward the suspended limb.
Machi.
Susanoo's arm froze in mid-air, every joint and plate wrapped in countless threads. A closer look revealed that those threads already stretched through the entire villa, anchored to pillars and walls on every floor.
If Susanoo tried to move now, it would have to drag the whole building with it.
Ronin's brow tightened. In that single heartbeat he understood the intent.
They were trying to force him to dispel Susanoo through sheer restriction. They knew perfectly well he could cancel and reform it at will. The entire setup existed for the fractional gap that appeared the moment the armor vanished.
His gaze shifted to Chrollo.
At the same time he ran the numbers.
Kortopi, Hisoka, Pakunoda, and Nobunaga had still not shown themselves.
Abachi's earlier message proved the Troupe had split off at least one member as bait to draw the others away. Gunshots had been mentioned. The most likely candidates were Hisoka and Pakunoda.
Nobunaga, as a pure combatant, would almost certainly be reserved for the main field. Kortopi's ability could reshape the environment into something advantageous for the Troupe. The thick pillars currently anchoring Machi's threads were proof enough—Ronin was certain he had not seen that many load-bearing columns on the first floor when he entered. They had been copied.
Pakunoda's ability only became truly dangerous on contact. Fired at range through a pistol it posed no real threat to him. The Sharingan could track every trajectory and step aside long before the rounds arrived. On a frontal battlefield her value was almost zero.
If she alone was the bait, she probably could not even handle Shizuku.
Hisoka was the real variable.
His ability was the key. Whether he would use it personally, whether Chrollo would wield it for him, or whether the antennas had already been handed over in advance and were simply waiting for the right moment—any of those possibilities remained open.
The shape of the plan clicked into place.
Susanoo was an exposed ability. To achieve a decisive result in the exact instant it disappeared, the cleanest method was Hisoka's power: plant an antenna on the target during that brief window.
None of the Troupe members currently on the field possessed an ability that could reliably accomplish that insertion. That left only one conclusion.
Chrollo still held an auxiliary technique capable of driving an antenna into him at high speed.
Machi and Kortopi would force the cancellation of Susanoo. A hidden Nobunaga would explode into a surprise assault. The true finishing blow, however, would come from Chrollo himself.
Ronin's eyes noted the way Chrollo's fingers rested on Bandit's Secret—poised, ready to turn a page at any moment.
Only one question remained.
Where was Nobunaga, and in what form would he appear?
Ronin still remembered that Hisoka possessed two antennas. A feint that suddenly became the main attack was entirely possible.
His hands formed seals in front of his chest. At the same time the left eye shifted almost imperceptibly and activated its power in complete silence.
Susanoo vanished.
Machi's threads snapped apart under the sudden loss of tension. Franklin, still standing, ripped his own shirt open. The fabric tore away, exposing his entire chest.
There was no skin left.
Only a black, gaping hole.
Something detached from that hole and shot toward Ronin at extreme speed.
Scarlet eyes tracked it in a single micro-movement and identified the projectile the instant it cleared Franklin's body.
Nobunaga.
The swordsman gripped the hilt of his long blade, eyes tightly shut, En already flooding outward across his form the moment he appeared.
Even Ronin had not expected that method of entry.
Nobunaga himself was not the priority.
Peripheral vision caught the page in Chrollo's hand flipping. The phone remained in the other hand—but something new had appeared beside it.
The bookmark.