"Mobility, damn mobility!" Franklin stopped his Double Machine Gun and slammed a fist into the wall beside him.
The wall shattered, and rubble plummeted from high above.
Bonolenov was calmer. Without even treating the wound on his back, he turned and rushed toward the restaurant.
He remembered perfectly well that their leader, Chrollo, was still fighting Hisoka there.
The Nen Beast user and the Chain Killer had already escaped. They couldn't let Hisoka get away too! At the very least, they had to pry all the information out of him.
But when Bonolenov burst into the restaurant and saw Chrollo standing by the window, his brow furrowed.
Damn it, had even Hisoka escaped?
With that thought, he approached the window and looked outside, where he saw Hisoka racing down the building's exterior, dodging the small swords pursuing him!
The small swords couldn't hit Hisoka at all, while Bungee Gum let him move along the building's exterior as easily as level ground. But Bonolenov also noticed that the fleeing Hisoka had only one arm left.
Even so, a sense of helplessness flooded Bonolenov's heart.
It was an emotion he hadn't experienced since joining the Phantom Troupe.
Pursue him? He couldn't possibly catch up, nor did he have the ability to run along the outside of a building. Not pursue him? The frustration of simply letting the enemy leave threatened to overflow.
Chrollo's phone rang just then. The flying swords darting around outside the building seemed to reach their limit at that moment, hovering in midair and trembling incessantly.
Chrollo's expression was grim as he answered.
It wasn't because of what he heard over the phone, but because he already knew that this operation, originally intended as revenge, had turned into nothing more than further losses.
He seemed to have become a real clown!
Especially now, when he couldn't quite make sense of things. Had Neon foreseen all of this through her fortune-telling?
Turning his head, Chrollo discovered that Neon, who had been lying on the floor, had vanished too. Qiao Lun had probably put her into his shadow.
He must have done it while the Great Serpent was carrying him away!
As for Hisoka, the two of them were evenly matched. With Chrollo's leg injured and fractured, he really couldn't stop Hisoka if the latter was determined to flee, especially when Pakunoda's capture had drawn every Troupe member's attention away.
What should he do next?
Even when he had seen Sarasa's corpse all those years ago, Chrollo hadn't felt as lost as he did now.
But that confusion lasted only a few seconds before disappearing, and resolve returned to his eyes.
Chrollo turned to look at the members behind him. There was no sadness in his eyes, only calm. "We are the Spider. Even if we lose a few legs, we must keep walking!"
On his way downstairs, Chrollo found the gravely wounded Phinks and Feitan, who had arrived carrying Owl.
Thirteen of them had come to Yorknew City together. In just a few short days, only seven remained.
Everyone knew perfectly well that Pakunoda, who had been captured, would meet a terrible end.
As for rescuing her?
Not even Chrollo had entertained the thought. Their opponent had outmaneuvered them three times in a row, costing them five companions. If they acted rashly again, it might truly spell the Spider's end.
But simply leaving wasn't the Phantom Troupe's style either.
So Feitan forced Owl to talk and learned where all the auction items were. When they rushed there, they found only mafia personnel.
After Kortopi finished making copies, Shizuku sucked everything into Blinky according to plan.
Then the group found the bodies of Uvogin and the other two, which the mafia had hung up. Only after taking them along did they leave the Semetary Building, pursued by the mafia.
As far as Pakunoda was concerned, Qiao Lun's plan was to kill her outright.
There was no way he would become her companion anyway, nor did he have any ability to extract her power for his own use. In his eyes, keeping her alive would bring nothing but trouble.
"Could you hand her over to me?" Kurapika's voice reached Qiao Lun as he pondered.
"Of course. I only need the body to collect the bounty." Qiao Lun didn't mind at all.
What he was considering now was whether Hisoka could escape. Would the badly battered Phantom Troupe come to rescue Pakunoda? And finally, would the Troupe take the auction items the mafia had left at the venue?
Hisoka hadn't been in great shape back then. From the look of him, he might have been attacked by Indoor Fish.
Even if he did escape, those injuries would probably take him quite some time to recover from.
As for whether the Troupe would rescue Pakunoda, Qiao Lun was considering whether he could use her as bait to lure its members in and kill them.
After all, only seven remained.
Even if he had to spend some money, wiping out all seven in one fell swoop would still be a good thing.
But as long as Chrollo stayed calm enough, he probably wouldn't fall for it after what had happened this time!
As for the last point, Qiao Lun felt that, given how greedy the Phantom Troupe was, they would probably pack up all the auction items and take them away once they knew for certain that he had left. More importantly, they would also take the bodies of their members that the mafia had hung up.
Apart from those three matters, there was one more thing he needed to confirm: whether the Ten Dons were still alive.
But how to confirm that was a problem.
Because, according to the events in the manga, Illumi would control the Ten Dons and have them publicly announce that the Phantom Troupe had been eliminated.
But now Hisoka had used Illumi to replace himself. That meant that even if the Zoldyck Family directly issued a mission to assassinate the Ten Dons, without Illumi's ability, there might be no one capable of controlling the Ten Dons' corpses to manage the situation.
"All right, I understand." Kurapika's gaze was resolute.
"But honestly, questioning people like the Phantom Troupe is pointless. The answers you get won't do anything except upset you." Qiao Lun shook off the jumble of thoughts in his head and spoke while rubbing his temples.
"I know." A bitter smile touched Kurapika's lips. "Actually, when I spoke to Machi, I already understood what sort of people the Troupe were.
"But last time, Gon told me he'd seen members of the Troupe crying over their companion's death, and that made me feel something else. They clearly know what it feels like to lose family and companions, so why would they inflict that pain on other people?"
Qiao Lun had no answer to that question.
Human malice was sometimes more intense and more incomprehensible than cursed spirits.
And when faced with evil people like these, what Qiao Lun could
do was prepare for battle.
Nue had already carried Qiao Lun and the other two to the agreed location: the hotel where the Nostrade Family was hiding.
As soon as Nue landed, Dalzollene came forward with his people to meet them. Even Light Nostrade was among them, his face full of anxiety.
When Qiao Lun left, he hadn't forgotten to take the unconscious Neon along. However, the shadow space wasn't suitable for holding living people because there was no air inside, so after keeping her there briefly, he had placed her on Nue's back.