REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!Chapter 30: No Buying Piranha in PvP Matches
The same principle applied as before: when goals aligned and neither Killua nor any related conflict was involved, Illumi was a functional teammate who would take on necessary tasks without being asked. This time, Ross had no intention of handing him Gold Rings for the shop. There was no point. In his read of the situation, whoever the convict-examiners sent out was already dead.
The shop for Swimming Combat King carried three items. Oxygen Gum, which slowed oxygen consumption. Kappa Fins, which increased underwater movement speed. And Piranha, priced at fifteen Gold Medals.
Illumi had no use for any of them.
The Piranha, for what it was worth: a periodic release into the pool that forced the opponent to stay underwater, tracked them, and delivered bites that were impossible to block. Every hit immediately drained the opponent's entire remaining oxygen supply, and the release continued until the match ended. In a player-versus-player context, this item was a mutual ban. It was a rules-based tool with no counter.
Piranha: Limited item, active only in Swimming Combat King. Price: 15 Gold Medals. Piranha are periodically released into the pool. Once deployed, the opponent is temporarily and forcibly prevented from surfacing. The piranha will track and attack; this attack cannot be blocked or evaded. A hit immediately expends the opponent's entire current oxygen reserve. Piranha deployment continues until the match ends.
The third convict-examiner had already positioned himself on the central platform and pulled away his cloth covering before anyone on the other side had finished getting there.
Ross already knew what this examiner looked like. He still physically recoiled.
Hisoka's reaction was more pronounced than anyone else's, and for a specific reason: his eyes went straight to Kuwabara's face immediately afterward. He felt something close to a retroactive apology for the opinion he had formed approximately five minutes earlier.
Green leaves existed to set off flowers. Even a man at Kuwabara's tier of ugliness could be described as rugged and full of masculine character when placed against the right backdrop.
Grey-blue skin. Dense, heavy muscle. Nineteen blue heart-shaped tattoos across the left pectoral, directly over the heart.
Those details became irrelevant the moment you got to his face. If Kuwabara's face was freshly cooled volcanic rock, this one was a multi-ton vehicle collision from which the driver had emerged, surveyed the damage, returned to the seat, reversed, and made several more passes just to be thorough. One eye larger than the other, both with blood-engorged lids that looked ready to burst. One ear with a set of evenly spaced notches cut into it as though Jerry had been working on it like a candle. The other ear replaced entirely by some kind of device of unknown origin. Suture lines distributed across the face in various sizes. Hair present in the sparse, patchy distribution of a lawn that had recently been on fire. He opened his mouth to smile, and approximately ten rotten teeth made their scattered presence known.
"Hmph! You see these hearts on my chest?"
He had already started talking.
"One for every person I've killed. Nineteen so far. But nineteen is an unsatisfying number. Not a round figure."
He deliberately drew the last words out and watched the other side for a reaction.
Click-click-click-click-click.
Nothing. He couldn't read anything. He was genuinely starting to wonder if the covered figure in front of him was alive.
Before he could continue, both of them vanished.
Preparation area, double doors, cut directly to the moment before entering the water.
"Hmph! Still not going to back down? Good. You'll be my twentieth vic—"
Glug. Glug. Glug. Glug.
Winner: Gittarackur!
One figure stood on the platform. The examiner did not get up again.
His name had been Chahu. Crimes: fraud, intimidation, extortion and related offenses of an essentially commercial nature. Sentence: one hundred and eight years. The face was the product of failed plastic surgery and body modification procedures. Cause of death: drowning.
He had presumably possessed some kind of ability — someone who had survived failed body modification and had metal implanted in their hands was not entirely without Nen development. The gap between him and Illumi had been so vast it never mattered. As both of them entered the water, Illumi had thrown a single needle. It passed through Chahu's throat.
After that, Illumi had simply stayed in the water and watched his opponent drown with a punctured airway in a pool that did not permit surfacing.
One action. Beginning to end.
Ross's attention had moved to the navigation arrow he had summoned. The recovery condition counter now read 3/3. The basic recovery requirement was met.
The Competition Roulette did not consider this a reason to stop. It was already spinning again.
"Hey! Warden! They've won three rounds already! This test should be over!"
The only female member of the convict-examiner group, or at least the one whose build and posture suggested as much, spoke up the moment she saw the wheel begin turning. The urgency in her voice required no analysis.
Three matches. Three losses. Two colleagues dead. This was not a transaction Leroute found acceptable to continue.
As a former psychiatric psychologist who had earned a hundred-and-twelve-year sentence for trafficking rare animals and gambling law violations, her strength was psychological profiling in high-stakes games. Not dying. The confidence Bendot had radiated at the start had crumbled along with his body, and she had no interest in contributing to the trend.
Lippo was not going to let them stop. The Nen remnant was still operating, and he wasn't going to leave that unattended for the sake of two convicts' comfort.
He didn't get the chance to say so.
Whoosh. A playing card embedded itself in the wall beside Leroute's ear and took a lock of hair with it on the way.
"I'm afraid not, my lady." Hisoka's voice carried its usual quality, unhurried and entirely conversational, across the empty room. "Things should be seen through to the end. If the only reason you want to stop is that you'd like to stay alive—"
"I'll kill you right now."
No killing intent behind it. A pure statement of fact, delivered in the same register as everything else he said. Leroute's legs stopped working. She was on the floor before she had consciously decided to sit down.
The roulette wheel settled on the fourth event.
Competition Subject: Hammer Golf.