"See? Told you coming in through the door would be more professional."
Liam grabbed the handle and turned. The brass knob twisted in his grip like taffy. He looked down at the mangled metal in his hand.
"Whoops."
He tossed the broken handle over his shoulder and pushed the door open with his foot. Shizuku and Kurapika followed him into the office.
The room sprawled out before them. Too much empty space for one person. A massive mahogany desk dominated the far end, and behind it sat a high-backed leather chair. The occupant had his back to them, face hidden. A bank of security monitors flickered on the desk at an angle, casting blue light across the darkened office.
"Are you the young master of the Bonarlon family?" Kurapika's voice cut through the silence.
No answer.
Kurapika started to speak again, but Liam held up one hand. Wait.
He channeled aura into his ears. The world sharpened. Beneath the hum of electronics and the distant sounds of the building, he caught something else. A faint hiss. Almost imperceptible. Air flowing where it shouldn't be.
Oh, you sneaky little—
Liam glanced at Shizuku. She was already gathering Gyo in her own ears, trying to copy him, but her eyes widened and her knees buckled.
Liam caught her elbow before she hit the floor. He pulled her upright and whispered directly into her ear. "Stand up straight. Act normal."
The Star Mark on her inner thigh pulsed. Liam felt the connection snap into place like flipping a switch. Shizuku's body straightened, moving smoothly despite the fact that her nervous system was currently shutting down. Her face went blank, but her posture remained perfect.
Remote control engaged. One puppet operational.
Beside them, Kurapika swayed. His eyelids fluttered. He dropped to one knee, fighting to keep his head up, staring forward with the determination of someone who refused to go down easy.
The chair behind the desk swiveled around.
"Ha! Figured it out too late, didn't you?"
The young master wore a gas mask. The kind with double filters and a rubberized seal. He leaned back in his chair with the smug satisfaction of someone who thought they'd just won.
Then he actually looked at them.
Kurapika was down, yes. But the other two were still standing. The woman's expression was serene. The twelve-year-old kid with the dead eyes just stared at him like he was mildly amusing.
"Wait. How are you—" The young master's voice pitched higher. "One milliliter of this neurotoxin drops a grown tiger in ten seconds! You should be unconscious! How are you still—"
"Friendly tip." Liam's voice was conversational. "Kurapika here is way stronger than a tiger. But poison resistance doesn't scale with raw strength. You need special training for that." He glanced at Kurapika, who was trembling with effort, his scarlet eyes dimming as consciousness slipped away. "Sorry, kid. Take a nap."
Kurapika's eyes rolled back. He collapsed face-first onto the floor.
Two down. One to go.
The young master stared. His hands shook as he raised a pistol from beneath the desk.
Liam kept walking forward. Slow. Steady. Like he had all the time in the world.
The gun barked. Once. Twice. Three times.
Liam raised his left arm. Ken flared around his forearm, a wall of condensed aura. The bullets hit the barrier and spun, shedding velocity, until they barely grazed the fabric of his sleeve before tumbling to the floor with dull clinks.
Behind him, Shizuku moved to the door under his control. She closed it quietly. Locked it. Then stood at attention like a soldier.
Liam reached across the desk. The young master flinched back, but Liam was faster. He grabbed the gas mask and yanked it off the man's face.
"No! Wait—"
The young master's pupils dilated. His jaw went slack. Drool pooled at the corner of his mouth. He slumped forward onto the desk, unconscious.
Liam checked his watch. "Eight seconds. You said ten. False advertising."
He turned around. Shizuku stood by the door, blank-faced. Kurapika was sprawled on the carpet, breathing slowly.
Time to explain the trick before Kurapika woke up and started asking questions.
How did we survive?
Simple. They didn't. Not technically.
The neurotoxin was working exactly as advertised. Right now, Liam's nervous system was compromised. His body should be paralyzed. Same with Shizuku. The toxin was doing its job perfectly.
The problem was that the toxin assumed you needed a functioning nervous system to move your body.
Liam activated the Star Mark on the back of his own neck. His body responded. Not through neural pathways or electrical signals traveling down his spine. No. The Star Mark bypassed all of that. He controlled his body the way he controlled Shizuku. Like a video game character. Direct input. No biological middleman required.
Nervous system compromised? Fine. I'll just operate my body manually.
Same principle for Shizuku. The Star Mark on her thigh meant he could pilot her body remotely, even if her brain couldn't send signals to her limbs anymore. The hypnotic gas interfered with her nerves. It couldn't interfere with his Manipulation ability.
But they still had a problem. The toxin was in their bloodstream. They couldn't just walk around poisoned forever.
"Blinky," Liam said aloud. "We need you."
Shizuku's hand moved. She raised her right arm, and aura coalesced into the vacuum cleaner with the grinning mouth and bulging eyes. Blinky materialized with its usual cheerful menace.
Liam grabbed a pen from the desk. He stabbed the back of his own hand. Not deep. Just enough to break the skin. He did the same to Shizuku's forearm, then crouched beside Kurapika and made a small cut on the back of his hand.
"Suck up all the sleeping gas in this room," Liam commanded. "And absorb the toxin from our bodies."
Blinky's mouth opened wide.
Vrrrrrrrr.
The vacuum roared to life. Invisible gas swirled toward the intake. Then, from the small wounds Liam had made, thin wisps of something dark and oily began to seep out. The toxin, pulled from their bloodstream by Blinky's impossible suction.
Liam watched his own wound. The Star Mark's healing kicked in too fast. The cut sealed before the toxin could fully drain. He stabbed himself again. And again. Each time, more of the poison emerged like smoke before the wound tried to close.
He did the same for Shizuku. Stab. Drain. Heal. Repeat.
Devil knows why this works.
Logically, Blinky shouldn't be able to suck toxins out through surface wounds. The poison was diffused through their entire circulatory system. But Shizuku's subconscious didn't care about biology. She believed Blinky could remove anything she considered "non-living" from a space. Blood? Non-living. Bacteria? Non-living. Toxins? Definitely non-living.
So Blinky could.
And Liam was smart enough not to question it too closely.
If I sit her down and explain the biomechanical impossibility, she might stop believing it works. And then it won't work anymore. Better to keep my mouth shut.
Nen worked on conviction. Subconscious belief. Sometimes ignorance was an advantage.
Thirty seconds later, the air was clear. The wounds on all three of them sealed completely. Liam released his hold on the Star Mark, letting his nervous system reboot naturally. Shizuku blinked, awareness returning to her eyes. She looked around, confused, then shrugged and dismissed Blinky.
Kurapika groaned. He stirred, then jerked upright, gathering Ren instinctively.
"Yes. You're the most qualified of the three of us."
Kurapika whipped his head toward the voice. Liam sat in the young master's chair behind the desk, leaning back like he owned the place. The young master himself was crumpled on the floor nearby, drooling onto the carpet. Shizuku stood by the door, looking vaguely puzzled about what had just happened.
"Were you immune to the gas?" Kurapika asked, rubbing his head.
"Immune?" Liam smiled. "That's generous. Let's say I was barely affected."
Which was technically true. The gas had affected him. He'd just worked around it.
Kurapika frowned. "But I thought—"
"Being strong doesn't make you poison-resistant," Liam interrupted.
Otherwise Chrollo wouldn't have been so surprised when his poisoned dagger did nothing to Silva Zoldyck. Only people who train specifically against toxins, who've been eating poison since childhood, build that kind of resistance. He thought
He paused, considering. Actually, I bet the Zoldyck family could survive a Poor Man's Rose. Those things are pretty famous. If you're training your kids to resist every toxin imaginable, you'd definitely include rose bombs on the list.
Kurapika looked down. There was a fresh cut on his arm. He didn't remember getting it.
"Had to give you a little scratch to drain the poison out," Liam said. He stood, walked around the desk, and grabbed the unconscious young master by the collar. He lifted the man like a sack of potatoes. "Come on. We've been here too long. Let's find somewhere else to have our little chat with this guy."
Kurapika opened his mouth. Closed it. Then nodded.
They headed for the door.