"So you're saying he deliberately let you steal his ability?"
Machi frowned, trying to make sense of it. The whole situation felt wrong.
Chrollo held his book in one hand, expression unreadable. "Yes. Three possibilities. One: I'm wrong, and he genuinely didn't realize what I was doing. Two: He knows the danger but believes he can develop new abilities from scratch even after losing this one. Or three..." He paused, almost amused. "He simply doesn't care about the ability I stole."
They stood near the crime scene. Security had pulled Chrollo aside first since he'd appeared in last night's surveillance footage, and after answering their questions with the bare minimum of cooperation, he'd stepped aside to wait for Machi and Kortopi.
When the Troupe wasn't actively working toward a goal, members operated differently. Some, like Uvogin and Feitan, preferred the direct approach: violence first, questions never. If someone annoyed them, that person stopped breathing. Simple.
Others, like Shalnark, understood that brains had their uses. Smashing through every problem with raw force was wasteful. Inefficient. Sometimes it was easier to just follow society's little rules, buy a ticket, pay for a hotel room, smile at the flight attendant. The money came from somewhere, sure, but where it came from was irrelevant.
Feitan thought spending money was pathetic. The Troupe were thieves. If you wanted something, you took it.
Chrollo fell somewhere in the middle. He could play nice when it suited him, which was why he'd bothered answering security's questions instead of just killing everyone and moving on.
After he'd finished with the interrogators, Machi and Kortopi had found him, and he'd filled them in on what actually happened.
"That doesn't make sense." Machi's skepticism was obvious. "How could he possibly know what your ability does? What if meeting your conditions killed him outright? Or drove him insane? Or forced him into some kind of Nen contract he couldn't escape? The risk is too high. Nobody would volunteer for that."
Kortopi, who'd been listening quietly, spoke up. "The more extreme outcomes you're describing would require more extreme conditions, wouldn't they? Nen doesn't work like that. You can't just do whatever you want."
"That's what makes him interesting." Chrollo's tone was thoughtful, almost curious. "I think he enjoys the possibility. The chance that he might destroy himself. The thrill of being hated."
"They're coming," Kortopi said suddenly.
Both Machi and Chrollo turned.
Security escorted Pariston and Liam down the corridor, the black-haired girl with glasses trailing behind them.
The moment Pariston spotted Chrollo, his face lit up with that trademark sunny smile. "Hey! Having fun with the new toy? Took me a whole afternoon to develop that little thing. Hope it wasn't too boring. I was actually wondering how to dispose of it, so thanks for cleaning up my trash for me. Really, I appreciate it."
"Third option, then," Machi muttered, eyes flicking between Pariston's cheerful expression, Liam's neutral one, and Shizuku's mildly curious look.
"Yeah." Chrollo closed his book, returning Pariston's smile with one of his own. "Even if you're trying to provoke me like this, I still won't hate you."
Pariston's smile didn't waver. "What a shame. Do you have some kind of personality defect? My apologies if I've offended you."
Can this guy go five seconds without being insufferable? Liam thought, genuinely impressed by Pariston's dedication to being the worst. Is he a Conjurer? Does he manifest his own bullshit?
So here's what apparently happened: Pariston boarded the airship, heard that O.Zee was also onboard, and spontaneously decided to murder the guy. A man who'd tortured and killed his wife, walked free from court, and was about to live happily ever after on his dead wife's money. Pariston spent an entire afternoon developing a custom Nen ability specifically to kill this one person in the most psychologically devastating way possible.
All that effort. For one civilian. Who couldn't even use Nen.
Shizuku was right, Liam realized. This guy is absolutely unhinged.
The security personnel and nearby civilians couldn't follow the conversation at all. They stood around looking confused and vaguely threatened.
Soon enough, Pariston and Liam were called in for questioning.
Liam kept it simple. He'd been wandering around out of boredom, saw the door, hung around for like thirty seconds, then left. The surveillance footage backed him up. He'd spent less time near O.Zee's room than anyone else.
Pariston, on the other hand, talked in circles until the security guard looked ready to cry.
A commotion erupted from the far end of the corridor. Someone was trying to force their way through the crowd, shouting incoherently. Security moved to intercept.
Liam turned to look.
One of the guards grabbed the intruder and tried to restrain him, but the man thrashed violently, sucking in a breath like a drowning man coming up for air.
"PHANTOM!" he screamed. "TROUPE!"
The corridor went silent.
Then everyone started shouting at once.
Phantom Troupe? The Class-A wanted criminals?
Is he serious? Are they here?
On this airship?!
The man shoved the guard off and yanked back his hood, revealing a face that barely qualified as human. Sunken eyes. Skin stretched tight over bone. He looked like a corpse that hadn't realized it was dead yet.
His wild gaze locked onto Chrollo, Machi, and Kortopi. He bared his teeth in something that might've been a smile if smiles were supposed to look like death rattles. "Phantom Troupe. Do you remember me?"
"Wait, that's Professor Rowan!" someone in the crowd gasped. "The archaeologist! What happened to him?!"
"I heard his family was killed! Oh my god, by the Phantom Troupe?!"
"Those three are the Phantom Troupe?!"
Panic rippled through the onlookers. Some backed away slowly. Others bolted.
The security personnel who'd just been questioning Chrollo now looked at him like he was a live grenade. Is this real? Are these actually the mass murderers from the news?
Chrollo, Machi, and Kortopi didn't react at all. They just stood there, completely unbothered.
"Who are you?" Chrollo asked, tone polite.
"Hehe... hehehehe..." Rowan's laugh sounded like sobbing. Tears streaked down his hollow cheeks. "You killed my entire family. My friends. My neighbors. All of them. You tore through my whole life just to find some information about King Wangu's treasure..." His voice cracked. "Every day. Every minute. Every second I'm still alive, I'm thinking about tearing you apart with my bare hands. Eating your flesh. Watching you die. Hehe... hehehe..."
King Wangu again? Liam's brain kicked into overdrive. That's the second time someone's mentioned that name. What the hell kind of treasure is worth this much carnage?
Then he saw them.
Nen spheres. Dozens of them. Materializing in the air around Rowan like bubbles rising from deep water.
Invisible to civilians, but blazingly obvious to anyone with Gyo active. Each one pulsed with compressed aura, dense and unstable. Bombs. Everywhere.
More appeared. And more. Filling the corridor, the viewing area, spreading through the entire airship like a swarm of jellyfish.
Oh.
Oh, shit.
This was the bad feeling from last night. This was why Liam's instincts had been screaming at him to get off this damn ship.
Rowan had scattered Nen bombs throughout the entire vessel. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Enough to vaporize the whole airship if they all detonated at once.
"You were the one stealing tickets at the airport," Liam said, pieces clicking into place.
Rowan's face drained of what little color it had left. His voice dropped to a mumble. "I didn't want this... I didn't want all these people to die with me..."
Machi's eyes narrowed. Her aura flared, and she vanished.
She reappeared directly behind Rowan, one hand already forming into a blade, ready to sever his head from his neck in a single clean strike.
"If I die," Rowan whispered, "they all detonate. Immediately."
Machi's hand stopped half an inch from his throat. She glanced at Chrollo.
Rowan's smile widened into something ghoulish. "Hehehehe... This ability is called 'I Should Have Finished It Long Ago.'"
The air around him pulsed. More Nen spheres materialized, dozens per second now, drawn toward the Troupe members like iron filings to magnets.
Liam's stomach dropped as the pieces fell into place.
"Release-type Nen ability: I Should Have Finished It Long Ago."
Rowan's voice was dead calm now, reciting the conditions like he was reading a grocery list.
"One: I create Nen spheres using my own life force as fuel. Only I can see them."
"Two: Once released, the process can't be stopped or reversed."
"Three: The spheres move toward Phantom Troupe members automatically. The closer they get, the faster my life drains, and the more spheres I create."
"Four: The spheres only become explosive Nen bombs when they're within one kilometer of a Troupe member."
"Five: When I die, if condition four is met, every sphere detonates simultaneously. If not, they dissipate harmlessly."
More bombs materialized as he spoke. They drifted through the air, slowly converging on Chrollo, Machi, and Kortopi like schools of fish drawn to bait.
Liam's scalp prickled. If all of these go off at once... it doesn't matter if the Troupe survives. Everyone else on this ship is dead. And even if we somehow live through the explosions, the airship's going down. We're twenty thousand feet over open ocean.
Chrollo met Rowan's eyes. "I understand."
He exchanged a look with Machi and Kortopi, some unspoken communication passing between them, and then calmly started walking toward the viewing area.
Liam's telepathic presence brushed against Shizuku's aura, and he sent the thought directly into her mind.
[Cooperate with me. Whatever I do next, just go with it.]
He followed the Troupe in silence, mind already running through a dozen half-formed plans and discarding most of them as suicidal.