Chapter 50: No Pretty Girl Art Style, No Transformation Invincibility
"Go ahead."
Ross nodded, stepped aside, and retreated several dozen meters away at pace.
A brief examination confirmed the damage: internal organs, broken ribs, concussion. The body had forced itself into shutdown through its self-protection mechanism, but there was no real danger to his life. Hanzou made the decision without hesitation and hauled his senior out of the crater.
Nen users had tremendous vitality. Injuries that would kill an ordinary person would clear up with a period of quiet rest, whatever form they took.
The angle did cause one problem: both bald heads bent downward were radiating reflected light straight into Ross's face like oncoming high-beams, which sent him stepping back a bit further out of self-defense.
His caution wasn't unjustified. In the original world without the world-patch, Hanzou was probably the strongest candidate after Hisoka and Illumi, and that was without Nen. For Ross at this point, aura nearly gone and unable to freely deploy cartridge mapping abilities the way he had before, the odds of getting run over by Hanzou in an actual fight were fairly high.
What actually applied here was something entirely at odds with the ninja profession: Hanzou was an extreme chatterbox who couldn't keep a secret. Anything that passed through him would be retransmitted within the hour under the heading "I'm only telling you this." When he said he had no intention of being an enemy, he meant it exactly as said. Transparent in that particular way.
There was genuine brotherhood between Hanzou and Kazemaru, but a loss in a fair fight wasn't something Hanzou would carry as a grudge. For a ninja, a failed ninja had no value, and what happened to them was at the winner's discretion. Since Ross hadn't killed Kazemaru, Hanzou had an obligation to do what he could as the junior: find somewhere relatively hidden and get his senior settled to recover. That much was both possible and appropriate.
As someone who read situations clearly, once Hanzou confirmed that Ross had genuinely let Kazemaru go rather than finishing him, he put away entirely any thought of ambushing Ross while his aura was empty.
That said, carrying his unconscious senior, he couldn't help a certain amount of lament and unease.
The lament: someone with considerably more raw power than himself had gone down this easily. The unease: he could clearly see that if he had been on the receiving end of that lightning-fast combination instead... probably, maybe, call it eighty percent odds...
Okay, fine. If he'd eaten all of it, he'd be queuing for reincarnation right now.
"One more thing."
Just before leaving, Hanzou thought of something and turned back.
"When I passed through here earlier I spotted that black-haired kid in the green jacket, the delinquent. That's your friend, right?"
"...Where?"
Ross's attention snapped to it immediately.
"That direction. Not sure if he's still there."
Hanzou pointed to the seven o'clock position.
"Thanks."
Ross didn't question it. He headed immediately toward the direction Hanzou had indicated.
He had only covered about ten meters when a clearly abnormal pressure surged from deep in the forest, accompanied by a distant but unmistakably audible detonation.
Rather than stopping, Ross swapped in the Sonic cartridge and started pushing his legs into full speed.
...
"Such a simple technique~"
Shaolin, now looking nothing like before, had a familiar gun-hand pose leveled at the super-delinquent not far away and was watching him with an expectant expression.
Moments ago, he had traded a blast with Urameshi Yusuke. Now he waited.
Shaolin's former appearance as a Japanese novice monk was entirely gone. In its place: a figure still short in stature, topped with long hair that looked steeped in dried blood, a body of exaggerated muscle definition covered in markings that were either old scars or tattoos or some combination of both, crossing and crisscrossing in a dense, chaotic spider-web pattern.
Most striking was the face. A spider mark roughly the size of the face itself sat centered on the nose bridge, eight legs spreading across the cheeks and forehead. The face was flesh, not a mask, but it gave exactly that impression.
With that design, he could walk into the Phantom Troupe without needing to add a spider tattoo.
This was Shaolin's second phase: the true form of the demon Rando.
As a demon, Rando was also a technique thief. Whenever he saw a strong opponent with a Nen ability he wanted, he found a way to claim it for himself. But what he actually enjoyed most in that process was the moment after mastering it: using the technique in front of the original owner and watching the mix of shock, anguish, and disbelief play out on their face.
After savoring that fully, he would kill the original owner without mercy.
The expectant look he was wearing right now was exactly that. He wanted to see what Yusuke's face did when he fired a Spirit Gun back at him.
What he got was this:
"What are you so pleased about? You ate one of my Spirit Guns and you're making a face like you've got the upper hand?"
Yusuke's expression was the specific face of someone who had just watched a man trip coming down the stairs, then stagger upright and strike a pose: unfiltered pity shading into contempt, from the bottom of the heart.
The blood not quite wiped from the corner of Rando's mouth confirmed it.
Rando had needed only one look to copy the Spirit Gun. But the prerequisite for that one look was seeing it fired, right?
And how had he seen it?
He'd eaten one first.
A quick summary of the fight: single-minded Yusuke had executed Ross's advice with accurate precision. No excess talk, no opening given for the opponent to talk either. He seized the initiative immediately, and without giving Rando a chance to use a single technique, the sustained ORA-rush systematically hammered down Shaolin's first-form HP bar.
Fire Palm Fist? Never came out. Slash Wind Formation? Never came out.
Under relentless heavy punches with no breathing room, Shaolin blew. He tore off his false skin and blasted Yusuke backward at the same time.
Unlike in the original story, Yusuke here was running at genuine full strength with minimal expenditure: no grueling fight with Kibano, no bout with Kazemaru, and Ross's pre-island briefing had let him essentially skip a phase. His aura was down somewhat from the ORA-rush, but his stamina and vitality were at their peak.
So when Yusuke's brain supplied the summary phrase finish him while he's down, he condensed a Spirit Gun immediately and, at the maximum output he could currently manage, let it fly at Rando in the middle of tearing off his fake skin.
And Rando, who had no pretty-girl art style and was locked in the animation stiffness of shedding his false form, had no transformation invincibility window whatsoever. He ate the hit flat on the ground.
Hearing Yusuke tear into him, Rando's expectant expression froze. Then, visibly, the humiliation curdled into rage.
"Human! I'll kill you for that!"
***
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