Landing on the Island

The airship began to descend.

Outside the window, a long, narrow island rose from the horizon. At its center were two connected lakes, sunlight reflecting off the water in two symmetrical patches of light—like a pair of glasses resting on green velvet.

"We've arrived at Glasses Island." Examiner Masta stood beside the cabin door and adjusted his glasses. "The venue for the fourth test."

Saitama leaned against the cabin wall, legs stretched straight out, hands folded behind his head. He glanced at the lakes outside, then closed his eyes again. He took three sausages from his pocket and lined them up on his knees, then put them away. Then he took them out again, then put them away again.

The sound of wooden clogs came from the corridor.

Chairman Netero entered the lounge cabin in a yukata, carrying a cup of tea. Beans jogged behind him with a clipboard in his arms. Netero stopped in front of Saitama, set the teacup on a nearby table, and rolled his wrist. His joints cracked sharply.

"Saitama." Netero rolled up one sleeve, revealing a lean but sturdy forearm. "Would you like to have a one-on-one fight with this old man? After living this long, there aren't many opponents worth taking seriously."

Everyone in the cabin seemed to breathe more quietly at once. Hanzo froze halfway through lifting his cup, its rim tilting as water nearly spilled out. Kurapika said nothing, his eyes never leaving the forearm Netero had exposed by rolling up his sleeve—there was no visible muscular definition, yet the veins beneath the skin twisted together like the roots of an old tree.

Hisoka had been leaning against the cabin wall, spinning a playing card between his fingers. When he heard the words "worth taking seriously," the card stopped.

His pupils slowly contracted. It was not the same narrowing he had shown when he saw Gon during the Hunter Exam, the look of evaluating "potential"—back then, he had seen an unripe green fruit in Gon, something worth waiting for and cultivating, but still requiring time. This was different. Chairman Netero—the strongest man in the Hunter Association, a Shingen-Ryu master, the user of 100-Type Guanyin—had said before an examinee that there were few opponents worth taking seriously. Not a "promising sapling" like Gon, nor an "unpolished gem" like Killua. An "opponent." Hisoka slowly peeled his back away from the cabin wall and tilted his head slightly, as though reassessing a collectible he had previously placed in the wrong category.

He had previously labeled this bald man as "unpredictable"—not as an assessment of strength, but as a judgment of style. In Trick Tower, he had watched the bald man attack at close range, but the force of that punch against the flying beast's head had been too light, so light that he could not extract any useful information from it. So he had kept the bald man in the "to be observed" category, alongside examinees who had yet to reveal their abilities. Now Netero had given him a coordinate for strength. With that coordinate, every action he had failed to understand before rearranged itself into a completely new picture—not "unpredictable," but "already beyond the range of prediction."

"No."

Hisoka blinked.

"This old man hasn't even explained the rules—"

"Don't feel like moving."

Netero took a step back. One hand only, Saitama could attack first, any conditions he wanted—one hand, flying beast meat, any conditions, an official match—every offer struck the same wall. The only movement from that wall was Saitama taking sausages out of his pocket and putting them back.

Hisoka did not look at Netero. He stared at Saitama—this man was refusing the chairman of the Hunter Association in the same tone one would use to refuse a supermarket sample promoter. The playing card in his hand began to spin again, but far more slowly than before. Each rotation took several seconds. It was not excitement. It was waiting. He waited to see what terms Netero could still offer, and what posture this bald man would use to refuse them. When the fifth refusal fell, his playing card stopped between his fingers, face down between his index and middle fingers. The flatter the bald man's answers were, the slower Hisoka's breathing became.

Beans suddenly stepped forward. The short secretary, who had been hiding behind the chairman ever since entering, adjusted his glasses, opened a folder, and pulled out a printed sheet. "Premium hot pot set, unlimited supply. Snowflake wagyu, black pork belly, live shrimp, snow crab, handmade tofu, organic vegetable platter. All free. The sauce station includes sesame paste, minced garlic, chili oil, chive flower sauce, and fermented bean curd. Also all free." He paused, then added, "A copper pot one meter in diameter has already been prepared on the island. Four people can cook meat in it at the same time, and there is plenty of fuel."

Saitama stood up. "Let's go."

The playing card in Hisoka's hand slipped.

He lowered his gaze to the card. It had not flipped along its intended path, but shifted by a fraction of a millimeter and landed on his knee. His fingers still hung in the air, holding the pose from when he had pinched the card, but the card was no longer between them.

The corner of his mouth began to curl upward.

It was not his usual easy, half-smiling curve. It was extremely slow, extremely deep—like a silent crack spreading across ice, extending from the corner of his mouth all the way to his ears. He picked up the fallen card from his knee, moving slowly, a full twice as slowly as usual. He raised it to his lips but did not lick it immediately, merely letting it hover there, face down, obscuring the lower half of his face. Above the card, his pupils narrowed into two thin slits. The light shining from them was not killing intent, but something more primal—the indescribable satisfaction that rose from the depths of a hunter's bones when he finally confirmed the rank of his prey.

"Not an unripe apple."

His voice suddenly changed. It was usually sticky and leisurely, the ends of his sentences rising as though he were flirting. That tone remained, but beneath it lay a faint rasp, and beneath that, a long-suppressed tremor about to break free of its shell. It was like tasting a main course that had just been served from outside the menu—he did not know its name, its ingredients, its preparation, or what the next bite might bring. It was precisely that complete ignorance that was dragging him step by step into that—ah!

"It's already perfectly ripe."

He slowly extended his tongue and licked along the edge of the playing card bit by bit, as though using his lips and teeth to unwrap a carefully packaged gift. His body began to tremble, starting from his fingertips—the two fingers holding the card shook first, then his wrist, elbow, shoulders, and spine, spreading downward layer by layer, like ripples, like convulsions. Pink aura burst from his fingertips. The playing cards spread into a fan between his fingers, closed, then slowly straightened again. Threads of aura stretched into a fine web of light between the cards, every strand twitching slightly with the tremble of his fingers. He slowly pressed the opened cards against his collarbone, and the aura pressure from his fingertips passed along the side of his neck and straight through his body. His heartbeat was heavier and clearer than when he stalked prey. A faint, hoarse breath escaped from deep in his throat, as though it had been squeezed up from the very depths of his chest—the ending rose slightly, trembling, restrained, and satisfied. Every card on his collarbone gave off a faint hum in response to the aura's wavelength, as though catching the only key capable of opening a lock among a row of keys scattered across the floor. From his shoulders to his spine to the backs of his knees, his body restrained the excitement that kept building. His legs were tensed so tightly they nearly cramped.

This near-ecstatic emotion remained suppressed for several full seconds.

Water spilled from Hanzo's cup. He did not wipe it away, nor did he even notice that it had already run down his fingers and dripped onto the floor. His knees sank slightly, and one hand had already settled over the mechanism for the hidden blade on his forearm. It was not a deliberate defensive reaction, but a ninja's instinct—he sensed some kind of danger. Not killing intent, but something harder to defend against than killing intent: a pure, utterly reckless madness. Kurapika silently pressed his fingers against the back of his hand—he was checking his pulse, to confirm that this entire scene was not an illusion.

Saitama and Netero had already reached the cabin door. Beans jogged over, pushed it open, and made a welcoming gesture. Hisoka suddenly spoke.

"After the exam—" He removed the playing cards from his collarbone and collected them back into his palm one by one. His voice had not fully recovered from its earlier rasp and carried a thin layer of breathlessness. "Fight me."

Saitama stopped and looked back at him.

"The kind where we wager our lives. I will not accept a draw, surrender, or a pause halfway through. It ends only when one side dies." He held the last playing card between two fingers and lightly waved it toward Saitama. The cabin lights reflected off its surface, and a lingering pink trace of aura remained around its edges. A smile returned to his face, but it was different from before—there was no trembling excitement, no restrained moan. It was the expression of someone who had already made up his mind, announcing something that was bound to happen.

Saitama looked at him. A smile hung on that face covered in makeup, and the afterglow of that earlier tremor still lingered in his mismatched pupils. Saitama turned his head back and continued toward the cabin door.

"Too much trouble. And if you die after we fight, there'll be one less person in the later plot."

He walked out through the cabin door. The sounds of wooden clogs and footsteps gradually faded away.

Hisoka watched that back disappear beyond the door. He tucked the last playing card into his pocket, his fingers still trembling slightly—not from disappointment. Something deeper was settling into certainty. He tilted his head, and the remaining smile at the corners of his mouth did not fade. Instead, it deepened, carving itself into the lines beside his mouth. His voice was so soft that only he could hear it, as though humming a lullaby only he knew.

"You don't get to decide that. Ripe fruit will eventually fall to the ground. I'm merely waiting for the moment it falls—or perhaps, I'll give the branch a push." He released his hand from his pocket, spread all ten fingers, and raised his fingertips as though gently caressing a main course that had already been reserved and ordered in the void. He licked his dry lips, his Adam's apple rolling slowly as his pupils gradually dilated.