Chapter 31: Hole in One
"This event is safer than the pole vault. Pure competition, no fatalities. Who wants it?"
Hisoka gave that a brief moment of consideration, then responded with a question instead.
"Since you know all of these events this thoroughly, you obviously know what the last one is as well."
"I do. The last event is All-Style Judo. The name implies throws, but kicks, punches, and Nen abilities are all permitted. Think of it as a three-minute enclosed deathmatch with no exits, for all practical purposes."
Whatever else could be said about Ross, his command of anything game-related was total. The ease with which he laid out rules and strategies would have convinced anyone listening that he was the most capable person in the group, which made the fact that he was technically the weakest member of it a particular kind of irony.
"Hmm~~~"
Hisoka drew the sound out, giving nothing away.
"All-Style Judo! That one is MINE! Save it for me!"
Yusuke had no interest in containing himself on this point. Hammer Golf sounded like it required fine motor skills and patience, neither of which were in his top five attributes. All-Style Judo — where the right answer was to move faster than your brain — was exactly what he had been waiting for.
"Fine, the last event is yours then."
The words came from Hisoka, unexpectedly, the instant Yusuke finished speaking, and he was already stepping forward before anyone could respond.
"Wait, you don't want to hear the rules?" Ross called after him, genuinely surprised.
"You said nobody dies. Rules past that point don't interest me much. Better to leave some mystery."
Hisoka gestured dismissively with one finger and kept moving, unbothered.
Leroute stepped out on the examiner side. She had no real options. The last remaining event was a lethal deathmatch — Hammer Golf was significantly better than that, and Hisoka's card had already demonstrated exactly what kind of person she was dealing with. Every instinct she had toward psychological manipulation had gone completely quiet the moment that card hit the wall.
"After you, my lovely and thoroughly terrified lady~"
Leroute's response to Hisoka's greeting was to take half a step backward and say nothing.
Both disappeared. Both came back.
Winner: Hisoka!
Not a surprise.
Hammer Golf: the hammer throw replacing the golf club, aimed at a designated hole eight hundred and twenty meters away in a straight line. Fewer throws wins. Key rules worth knowing: landing in water added a throw to your count, mud reduced your power on the follow-through, and holding the chain too long would take you with it. Under optimal conditions with no items, the theoretical best score was four throws.
Hisoka used one.
He had likely been mildly curious, or simply wanted to do something with his hands. After reading the event description from the setup and working out the basic rules from context, he had applied his ability:
Bungee Gum.
Hisoka's Nen could be converted into a substance combining the properties of rubber and gum, one that could be simultaneously extremely adhesive and extremely elastic. Deceptively mundane in description. In practice, in Hisoka's hands, it was something else entirely.
Ross couldn't observe the ability itself through Hisoka's deliberate concealment, but when the chain ball sailed eight hundred meters and dropped clean into the hole on the first throw, the conclusion was straightforward: he had used the chain ball as a slingshot projectile.
No birds in the arena, which was a shame. He probably would have knocked two down just to add some interest.
Coating the chain ball with Bungee Gum, providing the launch energy, achieving that degree of precision over eight hundred meters — the gap between a veteran Nen user and everyone else was exactly this.
Leroute, competing on the parallel course throughout, had not touched her chain ball once. She simply felt, in a deep and unambiguous way, that she was still alive.
"Finally! It's my turn! I've been waiting this entire time!"
Yusuke looked ready to break into a run.
The last convict-examiner, who had spent the entire series of bouts sitting in shadow without saying a word, stood up. He reached up and pulled away the grey cloth covering his face.
Yusuke's energy stalled visibly. Kuwabara's expression shifted into the particular look of someone searching for a memory — and finding it.
"Johness."
Kuwabara said the name quietly.
Yusuke went stiff.
"Johness the Dissector." Hisoka contributed the addendum with the easy tone of someone recalling general knowledge. "The most brutal killer in Sabaht City's recorded criminal history. Confirmed death count of one hundred and forty-six, every body mutilated beyond any complete state. The finger strength alone is sufficient to tear through flesh and crush stone—"
He stopped himself. His tongue moved across his lower lip.
He was regretting giving away the last match.
A killer who used other people's lives as entertainment. The crying would probably be interesting to watch.
"Hey, Yusuke. Should we just forfeit this one? We've already won four."
Kuwabara, by this point fully recovered from his memory search, made the suggestion.
"No. I'm going to knock him flying."
Immediate refusal. No deliberation.
Yusuke operated on a moral framework that was, by the standards of most people in the Hunter world, unusually straightforward. The images coming to him now were news footage — body parts in bags, case after case, Johness's work. The volcano inside him was at the rim.
He walked toward the platform one step at a time. Johness, at the other side of the room, moved to meet him with that specific quality of mild excitement that came from anticipation of something long denied.
"Finally. Finally I'll feel it again — tearing through flesh."
Nearly two meters. Over a hundred and thirty kilograms. He looked down at Yusuke from that height the way a person looks at something that has already stopped moving.
"Try it and see what happens."
Yusuke looked straight back up at him.
Both figures vanished into the platform.
Competition Subject: All-Style Judo.
Johness (the Dissector) VS Urameshi Yusuke (Badge 408).
Life-or-Death Duel.
READY...
START!
The moment both shapes appeared in the Tōdō Group Judo Dojo, Johness reached out his large hand at close range, using his arm length as the advantage it was.
In the instant before his fingers reached what he was expecting to reach, the image in front of him blurred — and then his jaw received an impact of the kind that treated the brain behind it as soft tofu:
Yusuke's punch, loaded with Nen and every bit of the fury behind it, drove directly into Johness's jaw.
Nearly two meters. Over a hundred and thirty kilograms. He went backwards like a rag doll, crashed into the solid wall of the sealed dojo, and came down.
Yusuke stood over him, fist wet with blood, looking down at the man on the floor whose eyes had gone empty and who was not yet capable of standing.
"Stop playing dead. Get up. Be a man about it."