Waiting for the Rabbit to Come

NGL. The outskirts of the Chimera Ant nest.

The leaden sky looked like a sheet of iron burned through, ready to collapse at any moment. The air was thick with the mixed stench of rotting flesh and blood—not fresh blood, but stale blood that had fermented for days, carrying a cloying, fishy reek.

The catgirl Neferpitou crouched on a rock beside Kite's corpse, her tail twitching lightly.

Her En covered a two-kilometer radius. The blackened youth's Nen Pressure still filled every corner of it—the blue-gray, destructive energy powerful enough to threaten Meruem. Like the embers of a star that had burned itself out, it still trembled faintly in the air.

Then, in the next second, it was gone.

He had been instantly enveloped by an invisible white light and teleported away. It was as if someone on the other side of spacetime had reached out and forcibly dragged him away, leaving not even a trace of energy behind.

Pitou did not stand. She merely tilted her head, her cat ears turning slightly. She did not withdraw her En. Instead, she expanded it farther than before, letting it seep into every crack in the rocks and every treetop. Like an invisible net, it enveloped the entire ruin.

"Kite's corpse is still here." Her voice was soft, carrying the lazy hiss unique to felines. "He burned through his future for this dead man. He'll definitely come back for him. Meow—I don't need to go looking for him. He'll come looking for me."

She closed her eyes and waited quietly at the very center of her En.

Her tail swayed gently behind her, like a pendulum counting down the seconds.

Two kilometers away, behind a collapsed cliff.

Killua leaned against the cold rock, the nails of his right hand digging into his palm.