A-Wu X and X Awakening

A gust of wind swept up the yellow sand, carrying a pungent stench from a nearby mountain of garbage.

Qi Zhou smiled and said, "All right, I'll tell you everything I know about Nen."

He sat down on the ground, and A-Wu sat down in front of him, though he still kept his distance.

"I don't know how to explain it exactly, so I can only describe it to you."

Qi Zhou recalled how the leader of the Phantom Troupe had taught him, but...

Back then, the leader had told him to sense the Aura that appeared in his body when he summoned his book, work backward to perceive the Aura, and then gather it outside his body to form Ten.

But there was a problem. A-Wu didn't have a book!

Qi Zhou thought for a moment and said, "Can you... feel the Aura in your body?"

A-Wu: "...?"

He looked at Qi Zhou as if to say, You've got to be kidding me, his face darkening.

Qi Zhou looked into his eyes, and for some reason, he suddenly felt terribly guilty. "...S-sorry."

"But I'm really not lying to you!"

Qi Zhou raised his hand, and the Imaginary Musician, with its snow-white cover, slowly took shape in it. A-Wu's pupils contracted sharply, and even his breathing quickened.

"This should be a Nen Ability you gain after training your Nen to a certain level, but I don't know exactly how to get one." Qi Zhou held the book and raised his head to meet A-Wu's eyes, but A-Wu abruptly stood up. He looked as though he had seen something utterly terrifying, yet he was doing his utmost to suppress his fear. "Your... eye..."

"...Huh?"

Qi Zhou remembered that after the Song of the Four Seasons had been taken from him, he had to use Noah's power to use his Nen book. He raised a hand to cover his left eye and said, "It's fine. You can think of it as... um... a condition that has to be met to activate the ability."

At that, Qi Zhou suddenly froze.

"A 'condition' to activate an ability..."

Right. When Chrollo had asked about his Badge's ability, he had mentioned Restrictions and Vows. And when the leader had taken his ability, he really had done several things that had to be done beforehand.

"Then... to have a Nen Ability of your own, do you also have to set 'conditions'?"

It was like writing code-you had to input something to get a result-ah, he was getting sidetracked.

A small stone A-Wu tossed at him brought Qi Zhou back to his senses.

He instinctively raised a hand and caught it. Realizing he had gotten distracted while teaching his student, he smiled sheepishly.

"You can't see it yourself, but Aura really is constantly flowing out of your body, even though it's uncontrolled," Qi Zhou said. "Nen is an ability that lets you control that Aura and use it however you want."

Qi Zhou sighed softly. "That's all I know. The rest is just ways to use Nen-but there's no point telling you about those."

A-Wu was silent. Looking at his stern little face, Qi Zhou felt guilty on top of his unease-he felt like he was trading useless chatter for information without giving anything in return.

After an unknown length of silence, A-Wu spoke.

"Qi Zhou." He stared at Qi Zhou without looking away from his gaze. "Attack me with your Nen. I want to experience it myself and see what Nen really is."

Qi Zhou: "..."

He knew what it felt like to be attacked with Nen. When he had first arrived in this world and knew nothing, the leader had caught him and attacked him with Nen Pressure every day. He had been attacked with Nen Pressure more often than he ate or drank, and that feeling of death following him everywhere...

It had been truly awful.

Qi Zhou shook his head. "The person who taught me Nen told me that only Nen can resist Nen. If you're attacked with Nen Pressure when you don't have Nen, you'll be smashed to pieces."

"Besides, I don't know how to hold back." He lowered his voice and spoke each word deliberately. "If I get it wrong, you'll die."

A-Wu slowly said, "It's okay."

There was a resolve in his dark eyes: a determination to try even if there was only the slightest chance, even if it meant dying.

"Even if I die, that's my own choice."

Qi Zhou: "..."

He wanted to refuse, but looking into A-Wu's eyes, he didn't know how to say no.

He could only tell A-Wu his decision through silence.

But A-Wu only looked at him calmly. Then he lowered his head and said softly, "Please."

Qi Zhou: "..."

"If you sense Aura, make sure you get it under control as quickly as possible."

"I know! You've said that more than a dozen times already!" A-Wu said irritably. "You don't even know how to control it, so can you stop wasting your breath?!"

Qi Zhou: "...S-sorry! It's all that guy's fault for only teaching me half of what I needed to learn Nen. May he go bald soon!"

A-Wu: "..."

Standing opposite A-Wu, Qi Zhou composed himself and slowly raised his hand.

A-Wu felt the wind that had been blowing around them suddenly stop-or rather, it hadn't stopped, but couldn't come near this almost frozen space.

It was as though a huge piece of amber had sealed him inside. Pressure poured down on him from all directions, making him feel utterly miserable, yet he couldn't move a muscle.

"This is just me using Nen on you."

Qi Zhou spoke softly. He paused for a moment. "Can you keep going?"

"...Cut... the... crap!" A-Wu said through gritted teeth. "That's nowhere near enough! Put some more force into it!"

Qi Zhou: "...?"

Honestly, if he hadn't seen that A-Wu's face had already turned ashen, he might have thought he'd suddenly become incapable.

Bah, bah! He couldn't say he was incapable.

"All right... then I'm going to start thinking about kill-ing-you."

As soon as Qi Zhou's words fell, A-Wu felt as though the amber that had merely sealed him inside had been thrown into an icy polar abyss.

He stood naked in a glass box at dozens of degrees below zero, suspended in darkness. Countless gazes and undisguised malice shot toward him, seeking to pierce his body and see through his soul.

A-Wu began to tremble, his teeth chattering almost inaudibly.

Cold sweat rose from his body, only to be forced back inside by the immense pressure, unable to emerge at all.

Like a balloon squeezed to its limit, in the next second, it would-

"Aaaaaah-!"

A powerful, pale-gold wave of Aura burst forth from every part of A-Wu's body.

A-Wu trembled with his eyes shut. For the first time, he felt the power he had dreamed of and longed for over the past two years. It even gave him the illusion that he was invincible. If... he could possess this power-

"Quick! Rein in your Aura!"

He heard Qi Zhou's voice and instantly focused his mind, using all his will to control the unruly Aura. It was dissipating so quickly that he could barely catch it with his mind.

"If... I can't control its speed, what about its direction?"

No longer trying to draw the Aura back into his body, A-Wu relaxed and stretched out where he stood. Just as the Aura throughout his body was about to burst out, he abruptly used Nen to change its direction-like pulling a lever to change the course of a speeding train, or drawing a raging waterfall back into its riverbed, making it flow endlessly through his body...

Round and round and round... At last, like a torrent flowing into the sea, it slowly settled.

Qi Zhou used Gyo and saw the layer of vigorous, pale-gold Aura gradually recede toward A-Wu's body, until it obediently enveloped him.

"...Keeping your Aura on the surface of your body and stopping it from dispersing is called Ten."

As Qi Zhou guided him, he watched the child in front of him.

His voice sounded a little sour. He admitted it: he was jealous.

He had thought that a teacher like him, even more of an amateur than the leader, could never teach A-Wu Nen. He hadn't expected-

So was the one standing in front of him the real "genius" with the protagonist's script?!

A moment later, A-Wu slowly opened his eyes.

His Ten enveloped his body, and it allowed him to sense a world completely different from the one he had sensed before.

He looked at Qi Zhou and slowly said, "Thanks."

He fell silent for a little while longer before saying somewhat reluctantly, "I owe you a favor."