Shattered Hope

Twenty minutes later.

They arrived in front of a lone white villa on the outskirts of Peijing.

There were no guards around the villa, and the silence was terrifying. Pitou pushed open the villa's main door and walked inside. Gon and Killua followed close behind.

The villa's lights were off. Only the faint daylight filtering through the windows cast everything in a hazy gray. Pitou led them upstairs and stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway.

She extended her right hand and pushed the door open.

The instant the door opened, Gon's body froze in place.

Someone lay on the floor in the center of the room.

It was Kite.

He wore that familiar green jacket. His limbs had been stitched back together, with ugly, densely packed sutures around the joints. His hollow eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, devoid of any light. His body was cold and rigid, without the slightest sign of life.

He looked like a toy that had been played with until it broke, lying there in silence.

Gon walked step by step to Kite's corpse and crouched down.

He extended a trembling hand and gently touched Kite's cheek. The icy sensation spread through his entire body like a bolt of lightning. His lips moved, and his voice came out dry, like sandpaper scraping against something. "Kite... Kite..."

No one answered him.

The room was utterly silent.

Neferpitou stood in the doorway, looking at Gon's back. Her voice was as cold as ice.

"I'm sorry. Kite is already dead. Doctor Blythe can only repair living things."

Those words were like a poisoned dagger, stabbing straight through Gon's heart.

His body jolted violently.

Tears slid uncontrollably from the corners of his eyes, one after another, striking Kite's cold clothes. He raised his