In the dim, endless tunnel of the first phase of the Hunter Exam, a young boy with unnervingly quiet eyes joins the crowd. His name is Kuro, age fourteen. He possesses a natural talent for observation and a hidden Nen ability he keeps locked away in his heart.
When he teams up with Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio, his deadpan humor clashes with Leorio while his precise advice impresses Kurapika. On Zevil Island, a split-second metallic gleam on his hands catches Killua's eye—a secret the youn
Hunter x Hunter: Liquid Steel - Scorching Cage — A Spear to Protect
It was searing.
Every single cell in his body was burning and festering, like iron thrown into a blast furnace. The word "agonizing pain" wasn't enough. A scorching torrent, as if erasing his very existence, licked its way from the marrow of his bones to the underside of his skin.
His vision was pure white.
The pain was so intense that sparks were scattering deep within his eyes. His sense of balance had long since been destroyed; he couldn't even tell if his hands were on the floor or if he was floating in midair.
Even so.
Kuro did not close his eyes.
His black pupils glared, fixed solely on the fist being swung down toward Gon. A dull gleam from the Graviton Fist clung to Varec's right arm. If that landed directly, Gon's small body would be shattered to pieces.
(*—Make it in time.*)
He clenched his teeth. His back molars creaked under the strain, and the taste of blood spread inside his mouth.
Game State Interface. All categories, zero reset. Reallocation to Manipulation type—complete.
In that instant, something ruptured inside Kuro's body.
The blood that had been seeping from his wounds rose from the floor as if possessing a will of its own. Rust powder drifting in the air, dust, fragments of discarded metal scraps—all of them began to tremble simultaneously.
"Wha—"
Varec's fist stopped.
His murky gray eyes looked down at his own feet. The floor of the 241st floor, covered in waste materials like steel beams and iron plates, was undulating like a living creature. Silver, black, and red—metal fragments soaked in blood that had turned into liquid metal covered the entire surface like a carpet.
That moment of hesitation lasted 0.5 seconds.
"Pierce."
His voice was hoarse, and bloody bubbles moistened his lips.
But the command was absolute.
The metal from all directions sprang up at once. Rusted steel beams transformed into spears, broken iron plates became blades. All of them surged toward Varec's four limbs in a single, concentrated assault.
Right arm. Left arm. Right leg. Left thigh.
A dull, crushing sound of flesh being pulverized echoed throughout the disposal floor. Bones shattered, muscle fibers tore, and splattering blood dyed the scattered iron scraps on the floor red. Varec's massive body was impaled by countless metal spears, stitched down to the floor.
"GYAAAAAAAAAAH!!"
A scream erupted from Varec's mouth. His murky gray eyes widened in shock and agony, the scar on his jaw distorting. Even though his limbs were pierced and he couldn't move a single muscle, that twisted grin remained plastered on his face.
The fist aimed at Gon no longer moved.
Gon was unharmed.
Trembling from the intense pain, Kuro crawled across the floor on his hands, closing the distance to Varec centimeter by centimeter. Every time he moved, his broken ribs gouged at his internal organs. Blood overflowed from his mouth, and his vision threatened to fade to black over and over. Still, he did not stop.
Before the beast stitched to the floor, Kuro rose to one knee and straightened his body. With a blood-soaked hand, he grabbed Varec by the lapels of his jacket.
"My teacher. At the end. What did he say?"
Each word was hoarse, as if spoken in a fever.
Varec's murky eyes looked up at Kuro's face. Foaming blood in his mouth, his twisted grin deepened.
"...Heh heh, ya wanna know?"
Kuro's grip tightened.
"Answer me."
Varec's expression suddenly changed.
It wasn't that his grin disappeared. The sneer was simply replaced by a different emotion. As if recalling a distant past, or as if about to speak the name of the man he feared most—an eerie sense of distance.
"Lord Xenorc... in the Dark Continent..."
A voice mixed with bubbles and blood. The focus rapidly faded from Varec's eyes.
"...is waiting... for you all..."
His last words cut off, like a thread snapping.
The light completely vanished from his murky gray eyes. The grin plastered on his mouth fell slack, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Dead—.
Still gripping Varec's lapels, Kuro couldn't move.
(*What was my teacher thinking about, at the very end?*)
That wasn't what he had wanted to know. Not Xenorc's whereabouts. The only truth Kuro knew was that his teacher, in his final moments, had called out his disciple's name and wept—and the chance to confirm the meaning of those words was lost forever.
Gordo Heinen was no longer here.
Killing Varec wouldn't bring his teacher back. The words he had wanted to hear, he hadn't obtained.
The strength drained from Kuro's hand. Varec's body fell to the floor, sinking into a pool of blood with a wet splat.
The culmination of his revenge was utterly empty.
There was no sense of accomplishment from defeating an enemy, no feeling that he had cleared his teacher's regret. Only a void spread within his chest, as if a hole had been hollowed out.
—At that moment, the recoil of his Vow pierced through his entire body.
"Ugh, AAAAAAAH...!"
One hour of intense pain, and the complete loss of Nen.
The pain that adrenaline had suppressed during the battle now assaulted him tenfold. The sensation in his limbs vanished. He collapsed onto the floor of the disposal floor, crumbling down. The smell of dust, rust, and blood clung to the inside of his nose.
Simultaneously, with Varec's death, the Nen binding that had restrained Gon and Killua was released.
Killua reacted instantly.
Sensing the loosening of his restraints, he fully unleashed the muscle control techniques honed through his training as an assassin. He maximally relaxed the muscles in his arms, then expanded them all at once. The ropes creaked, and after a few seconds of struggle—with a snap, they tore apart.
"Gon, don't move."
Killua quickly removed the cloth from Gon's mouth, then untied his ropes. Gon's wrists were scraped and oozing blood, but paying no mind to the pain, he ran straight to where Kuro lay collapsed on the floor.
"Kuro!"
As he rushed over, Kuro's horrific state filled Gon's eyes. His broken right arm hung limply, and his shoulder bone was bent at an unnatural angle. His mouth was smeared with blood, and the silver lines running from his left wrist to his elbow slowly faded in and out of visibility.
"Kuro...!"
Crying, Gon tried to support Kuro's shoulder. His small hands were trembling. Even so, he absolutely refused to let go.
Killua crouched down next to Gon, his blue eyes quickly scanning Kuro's condition. His pupils narrowed vertically like a cat's, shifting into the cold, analytical gaze of an assassin.
(*Fractured right arm, several ribs, left clavicle broken too. Loss of Nen and intense pain recoil—damn, it's a miracle he's alive.*)
"Gon, don't move him. I'll support him."
Killua carefully avoided Kuro's right arm, supporting his upper body with an arm around his back. Using his knowledge of assassination techniques, he instantly calculated the angle that would prevent the bones from damaging his internal organs any further.
Kuro remained with his hands on the floor, unable to even lift his face.
Even so, he forced out his voice.
"...Are you two, unharmed?"
Without even trying to wipe his tears, Gon nodded over and over.
"—Yeah. I'm not hurt."
The strength drained from Kuro's hand one more time.
The three of them huddled together, sitting against the wall of the disposal floor. Under exposed steel beams, on a rusted floor. The cold air stagnated, mixing with the smell of blood.
Killua said nothing, continuing to support Kuro's shoulder.
Gon held Kuro's left hand in both of his.
Silence filled the dimly lit space.
—How long had they stayed like that?
Kuro spoke up quietly.
"...I stopped him. That guy."
He had stopped the enemy not for his own sake, but to protect his comrades. At that choice of words, Killua's blue eyes narrowed slightly. He started to say something, then stopped. Instead, he put just a little more strength into the arm supporting Kuro's back.
Gon quietly repeated, "Yeah. You stopped him."
Kuro's fingertips were trembling.
During the hour that the intense pain recoil continued, words of his own spilled from Kuro's mouth for the first time.
"My teacher. Gordo Heinen, was killed three years ago."
His gaze remained fixed on the floor. No emotion could be read on his blood-smeared face. But his voice alone wavered, ever so slightly more than usual.
"He taught me all the basics of Nen. There was a hidden lab, inside an abandoned mine in the Crossbell shaft."
Killua's analytical gaze. Gon's straightforward eyes. Both of them listened without saying a word.
"I was the first to discover the body."
The weight of those words deepened the silence of the disposal floor even further.
"The smell of blood filled the air, the floor was freezing cold... and my teacher had gone cold. His hands, they wouldn't move anymore."
A single tear fell from Kuro's eyes.
"I've lived my life with revenge as my purpose. But."
His voice trembled.
"—The truth is."
Two, then three more tears followed, staining the dusty floor.
"What I really wanted back. Was just the fact that my teacher died without any lingering regrets."
His true feelings, verbalized for the first time.
Words he hadn't even realized himself slipped out. The tears wouldn't stop anymore. Kuro didn't notice that he was crying. Still, he didn't stop speaking.
Without a word, Gon placed a hand on Kuro's shoulder.
Killua kept his gaze averted, but in the dim light, no one noticed the corners of his mouth relax just a little.
After a long silence, when Kuro's words finally ran out, Gon spoke up quietly.
"I'm really glad you told us that. Really."
Kuro didn't reply.
But his tightly clenched left hand opened, just a little.
—It was the moment the boy who had been an avenger cried in front of others for the first time, and spoke of his past.
The cold air of the disposal floor felt like it softened slightly.
More time passed, and when Kuro's body began to move little by little, he knelt beside Varec, still lying on the floor, and searched the inside pocket of his blood-soaked jacket. His fingertips felt the texture of folded paper.
Pulling it out, it was a document densely packed with numbers and symbols. It was blurred with oil and blood, but still discernible—a document in code format.
Killua peered at it from behind.
"What's it say?"
"I don't know."
Kuro quickly folded the document back up and tucked it into his own pocket.
"But it's too valuable to throw away."
"If it's a code, we just have to find someone who can decipher it!"
Gon looked up and said. There was no trace of tears in his voice anymore. His usual forward-looking energy was starting to return.
"We could use someone with connections at the Hunter Association."
Killua offered a practical suggestion.
At that moment, what simultaneously surfaced in the minds of all three were the words Varec had left at the very end. *Lord Xenorc waits in the Dark Continent—.*
Kuro slowly stood up. His body still hadn't fully recovered, but his legs were no longer shaking.
"You'll get caught up in my story."
He looked at Gon and Killua in turn. It was a warning tone, but deep within it, just a little—truly faintly—a hint of hesitation seeped through.
"We're already totally caught up in it!"
Gon laughed. His face was covered in scrapes, yet it was as bright as the sun.
"What are you saying at this point? Idiot."
Killua shrugged his shoulders in exasperation, then stood up and started walking first.
Kuro looked at both of their faces in turn, and for once unable to retort, he let out a small sigh.
(*—These guys, really.*)
Tucking the indescribable emotion deep into his chest, Kuro also turned his back on the disposal floor. His retreating figure seemed to carry a slightly lighter burden than when he had entered—though, of course, no one said that out loud.
The coded document Varec left behind held a tangible weight inside Kuro's pocket. Deciphering it would require time and information. And
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