Plan Six X A-Wu X The Mysterious Call

Night fell, and the moon rose high in the sky.

Qi Zhou frowned, staring at the deep darkness beyond the garbage mountains. He sensed an indescribable tension, like the wind rising before a storm.

Something was wrong.

Under normal circumstances, A-Wu should have been back long ago. Whenever the poison in Qi Zhou's body flared up, he would appear beside him and wait in silence.

But tonight, Qi Zhou could already feel the poison stirring in his body. Like a snake lying in wait, it quietly and patiently gathered its strength, waiting for the chance to drag him into hell.

Yet A-Wu still hadn't returned.

"Nothing should have gone wrong..." Qi Zhou took the phone A-Wu had given him from his pocket and gripped it in his palm. "If he ran into something he couldn't handle, he'd contact me. That's how it's been these past few days."

He flipped it open and placed a finger on the call button, only to hesitate. "What if he's hiding somewhere? If I call him out of the blue, would that-"

But before he could reach a decision, a tiny prick of pain flashed through him in an instant, before he could even register it.

Then, within moments, the stabbing pain spread throughout his body. Each flare-up was more intense than the last, as though something were gnawing at every inch of his flesh.

"Ugh..." Qi Zhou bit his lip, suppressing the whimper that escaped him when the pain caught him off guard, and curled up.

"Bzzzz~ Bzzzz~"

The next moment, the phone vibrating incessantly in his hand brought him back from the haze of sudden, excruciating pain.

Qi Zhou barely had the strength to hold the phone. He dug his fingertips into his palm to keep hold of it and pressed the answer button.

He took a deep breath, suppressed a wave of agony, and said softly, "...Hello."

"-Hmm?"

The voice on the other end wasn't A-Wu's. The realization made Qi Zhou clench his hand around the phone, nearly crushing it.

His voice turned cold. "Who are you-?"

"Hmm~"

The laughter sounded somewhat distorted through the battered phone, but the moment Qi Zhou heard it, he felt as though an electric current had passed through his body. He went numb from head to toe, even forgetting the agony inside him.

"Little one~ It would be better if you let your grown-up answer the phone~" The person on the other end spoke in an utterly casual tone, his voice rising at the end. "Or are you the owner of this number~~?"

Qi Zhou tensed his unbearably numb body.

He took a moment to recover, then lowered his voice. "Who exactly are you-"

"Oh my, oh my, never mind who I am for now~"

The person on the other end laughed. "The tallest building in District Five, within fifteen minutes. See you there~"

"Qi Zhou-don't-ngh!"

As the voice spoke, A-Wu's voice cut in, followed by a muffled groan, suppressed to the utmost.

Rage nearly overflowed from Qi Zhou's eyes.

"Well~ This little brat is someone you know, isn't he~~"

"But it doesn't matter if you don't want to come~ I'll come find you, bringing this little brat's corpse with me~~" The voice paused briefly. "That's all. I'll hang up now~"

With that, the person hung up without waiting for Qi Zhou to respond.

"Beep-beep-beep-"

Qi Zhou switched off the phone as the busy signal sounded. He gritted his teeth and tried to stand, but his legs gave out, and he fell heavily back to the ground.

Qi Zhou clenched his teeth, stood up once more, and slowly took a step forward.

Compared to the first time the poison had struck, he could now move despite the agony, but only slowly.

"Damn it-! Why did it have to be now-?!"

Anger and frustration engulfed him, but anger was no help. If he couldn't reach the designated place within the half hour that person had given him...

He slowly lowered his head and fell silent for a moment. Then he gently closed his eyes and called out in a low voice, "...Noah."

"I'm sorry, but could you... help me...?"

Qi Zhou, or rather Noah, sped through the garbage mountains under the cover of night, like a ghost and a bolt of lightning.

Within the allotted time, he arrived amid a stretch of ruins. There stood the tallest building in all of District Five: a clock tower with one corner missing. The place on its towering spire where a bronze bell should have hung was empty.

A young man stood there, leaning against a pillar of the clock tower in a casual, carefree pose.

As Noah departed, Qi Zhou "woke up" and looked up at the person standing on the clock tower.

The man seemed to sense his gaze. He tilted his head slightly, curled his lips, and looked back at Qi Zhou.

The instant their eyes met, Qi Zhou felt an inexplicable chill run through his body.

The young man's figure suddenly vanished. When he reappeared, he was less than five meters from Qi Zhou.

Qi Zhou tensed every muscle as though facing a formidable enemy. A drop of cold sweat ran down his temple.

"So you really are a little kid~"

The young man stared at Qi Zhou, tilted his head, and curved his lips into a smile.

His face was covered in heavy makeup, marked with a star and a teardrop. His orange-red hair stuck up wildly, and he wore clothes cinched tightly at the waist and high heels.

He looked like a circus magician.

But a circus would never have a magician this dangerous, this perverted!

Even though this was only their first meeting, Qi Zhou was one hundred percent certain that there was something seriously wrong with this man!

"Oh my, oh my, I was wondering what kind of impressive character the Spider taking the test would be."

The young man stared at Qi Zhou, an extremely dangerous glint showing in his long, narrow eyes as he narrowed them slightly.

"What a... disappointment~"

Though he said he was "disappointed," his eyes were filled with utter madness and enjoyment.

He slowly ran his tongue over his lips, as though about to taste the dessert before the main course.

Qi Zhou noticed that his body was trembling, not from pain, but from fear, and from the extreme discomfort of not knowing how to face the man before him.

This pervert was surrounded by Nen he made no effort to restrain, and Qi Zhou had only ever felt such a terrifying, despair-inducing Nen pressure from one other person.

He... was probably as terrifying as Chrollo-

But Qi Zhou would rather face Chrollo than this guy, who couldn't even speak like a normal person.

Because Chrollo's Nen pressure was cold and silent, like a fathomless abyss beneath the icy sea.

This pervert's Nen, on the other hand, was filled with his madness for killing and fighting. He craved battle, craved blood, craved death-whether he brought it to others or they brought it to him.

Qi Zhou suppressed his fear. Even as his teeth chattered, he asked, enunciating every word, "...Where is the owner of that phone?!"

The young man stared at him with eyes full of delight. The curve of his raised lips gave his smile a terrifying cast.

Qi Zhou's expression grew grave. Seeing that the man had no intention of answering him, he pushed his perception to its limit-

Among these ruins, with their towering clock tower, he sensed the pervert's terrifyingly powerful Nen, as well as an extremely faint Ten beneath another corner of the clock tower.

"A-Wu..."

Though he could sense A-Wu's presence, his Ten had grown so weak it was almost imperceptible.

A shadow fell over Qi Zhou's eyes, and he silently clenched his fists.