"Mr. Wing? Are you... all right?"
Gon looked at Wing.
The usually mild-mannered teacher now stared blankly through his glasses, as though he had just witnessed a miracle beyond his comprehension.
Killua frowned too, his gaze roaming over Wing.
He did not know exactly what had happened. He only felt that when that hand touched his back, something dormant within him seemed to have been awakened by that gentle power.
"I... I'm fine."
Wing took a deep breath, forcing down the storm raging in his heart.
He removed his glasses and scrubbed them hard with the hem of his shirt, as though he could wipe away the "illusion" he had just seen along with the smudges.
But he knew it had been no illusion.
"I... reassessed things."
Wing put his glasses back on and looked at the two innocent-faced boys before him, his tone turning exceedingly strange.
"Your situation... is a little unusual. Perhaps we don't need to use such a 'drastic' approach."
He abandoned the idea of forcibly breaking through with Hatsu.
Seriously, taking a battering ram to two "living doors" that could already breathe on their own?
That was not opening a door. That was laying siege, a criminal waste of their gifts.
He decided to use a gentler method, one better suited to their current condition.
"Both of you, sit cross-legged."
Wing's voice sounded a little unsteady. "Adjust your breathing and enter that 'breathing' state, just as Lin Yan taught you."
"Oh! I know how to do that!"
Gon immediately complied, sitting cross-legged with his back straight.
Though full of questions, Killua sat down as well.
Both boys quickly entered the state.
Over the past two weeks, they had practiced breathing day and night in Lin Yan's Qi-Gathering Formation. This state had long since become muscle memory.