The battle within the quiet grove was conducted in absolute silence—so quiet that even someone standing nearby might not have noticed the life-or-death struggle.
Killua moved with his Godspeed active, his body flickering with faint sparks that he kept tightly contained to avoid wasting energy. He utilized his assassin techniques and combat intuition to weave through the trees at an incredible velocity, a silent blur of lethal intent.
Shaiapouf flew with a speed that belied his delicate butterfly wings, darting between branches with eerie grace. He had condensed his Spiritual Message scales into the shape of a rapier, conducting a nocturnal duel that would have put an owl's predatory skill to shame.
(He's fast... quit flutterin' around like a moth and fight. I've got a bad feeling he's hiding some really nasty ability,) Killua thought.
(He is fast, truly. I cannot quite catch him, yet he cannot touch me either. His "snap"—the way he shifts between stillness and maximum speed—is far beyond my projections. That is all,) Pouf mused.
It was still the feeling-out phase of the fight, yet the lack of sound and the depth of the night created a supernatural atmosphere that even a first-rate Hunter would have found impossible to track. Both were trying to draw out the other's hand without revealing their own, but Pouf—desperate to return to Meruem's side as quickly as possible—decided to break the stalemate first.
"Dance, my scales!"
A massive cloud of slightly bioluminescent scales erupted, flickering in a kaleidoscope of colors that cut through the darkness.
"Sink into your own nightmare! Phantom Message!!"
It was an advanced application of his scales combined with hypnotic light. It wasn't just a chemical toxin for those with poison resistance like Killua; it was a physical hypnotic effect designed to snare the mind of someone who, like Gon, might already be manipulating their own consciousness.
Killua's body suddenly jerked. His eyes lost focus, and he stood perfectly still, like a doll whose strings had been cut.
"You certainly were a handful," Pouf sneered. "Out of respect for your tenacity, I shall ensure your death is certain. That is all."
Confirming through his Spiritual Message that Killua was paralyzed by fear, Pouf dove from directly above at maximum speed, aiming his rapier at the boy's skull.
The moment the tip of the blade touched Killua's hair, Pouf's head separated from his shoulders and rolled across the forest floor.
"What?!"
"...Ugh. Dammit... that was a hell of a thing to make me look at, you jerk."
Pouf's Phantom Message had worked perfectly. It had induced a nightmare and frozen Killua in place. However, it had failed to account for Godspeed: Whirlwind—the automatic counter-reflex that allowed Killua to react to an attack even if he couldn't see or perceive it.
Even while trapped in a nightmare, Killua's body had accurately decapitated Pouf. The headless body remained frozen, its rapier driven into the dirt.
"I see. So you truly are my natural enemy. You were prepared for every contingency. That is all," Pouf's head said, looking up from the ground.
Killua looked down at the head, his eyes cold. He walked forward to finish the job.
"Give me a break. You expect me to be relieved just because I cut your head off? Insects keep moving for a while after they're killed. That's just..."
Killua's foot swung in a vicious soccer kick, pulverizing the head into a smear—just as a rapier thrust silently from behind, cutting only the empty air where Killua had been standing a millisecond prior.
"I knew it," Killua said, having flickered several meters away. "Your gaze, your voice, even your aura... none of it felt like someone who was about to die. Your acting was so bad it was almost funny."
"My apologies. I suppose I lack the necessary experience," Pouf replied.
Particles began to gather above Pouf's empty neck. Without a scratch or a trace of the previous damage, a perfectly intact head manifested once more.
"Body miniaturization and particle manipulation? I'm guessing the smaller you get, the weaker you are. You're only this cocky because you're immune to physical attacks," Killua deduced.
"Exactly! For a child, you truly are a seasoned Hunter. And your ability... it is magnificent!"
"Oh? You figured it out?"
"Of course. Reaction speed and explosiveness that transcend human limits, and that faint electrical current I felt when my rapier touched you. You manipulate bio-electricity."
Pouf looked up at the sky, his face flushed with the joy of encountering a truly elite opponent. "Among the billions of humans, you are undoubtedly the finest cream of the crop. If I can present you to Lord Meruem, his glory will shine even brighter!"
Killua didn't let his guard down. He began to move, using Rhythm Echo to create a dozens of afterimages that swarmed Pouf. He lunged with a supersonic palm strike, but his hand passed through Pouf's abdomen as if it were a hollow shell. Killua ducked under the counter-thrust and retreated.
"It is useless," Pouf said. "Surrender now, and I shall capture you without further injury. You may be my counter, but the gap in our raw power is absolute. That is all."
Killua grimaced at the condescending tone. He didn't bother answering, instead closing the gap once more with Rhythm Echo. Pouf tried to time a counter based on the identical movements, but his instincts—honed by his recent decapitation and the unsettling stillness in Killua's eyes—forced him to retreat instead of stepping in.
A crackle of electricity and a blinding flash filled the grove. The hand Pouf had been using to hold his rapier was charred and fell to the ground.
"Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies!!"
Killua's follow-up strike missed as Pouf dissolved into a cloud of particles. He reformed in mid-air, his body whole again, and retrieved his rapier.
"You... You dare harm my body?! The property of Lord Meruem?!"
Pouf was trembling with fury, but the fragment of logic remaining in his mind was screaming a warning. Killua's Lightning Palm had managed to incinerate a part of him before he could even react.
"You talk too much," Killua muttered. "That nasty hypnotic light of yours... you can't use it while you're in your particle form, can you? Otherwise, there's no reason not to use it now. Like I said, I'm the 'optimal solution' for you."
Killua was right. Pouf's Spiritual Message required him to maintain a certain physical density to manipulate the scales effectively; he couldn't use it simultaneously with the total miniaturization of Beelzebub. The ability to divide his body down to the cellular level was a massive strain even for a Royal Guard's capacity.
However, Pouf's thoughts were now occupied by something else: the sheer impossibility of Killua's aura.
(Impossible! I can understand manipulating bio-electricity. I can understand transmuting aura into electricity. But to do both at once?! Those two concepts are diametrically opposed!)
To output enough voltage to harm an opponent while simultaneously manipulating the infinitesimal bio-electrical signals in one's own nerves without causing self-harm was a feat of aura control that should have been impossible. It was like trying to put out a fire with a high-pressure hose while simultaneously filling a tiny tea cup without spilling a drop.
It was a level of control that Netero and Bisky had recognized as peerless—a talent that surpassed even Hisoka's combat genius.
Killua, having sworn to stand beside his "Monster" best friend, had reached a brilliance that completely eclipsed the centuries of history in the Zoldyck family.
Killua leaped, swinging his arm. A bolt of lightning streaked toward Pouf. Pouf dodged by a hair, the bolt striking the tree behind him.
(What?! There's aura on the spots he touched!)
Pouf sharpened his Gyo. He saw tiny traces of aura scattered all over the surrounding trees and ground. Using these hidden traces as conductors, Killua's Thunderbolt could strike not just from above, but from the sides and even from below.
(This is bad! Even if I can predict the trajectory, the attack is too fast! If I split with Beelzebub, I just increase my surface area—I'll be hit by more bolts!)
Pouf struggled to evade the erratic, lightning-speed strikes of Narukami. He realized that at this rate, he wouldn't make it back to Meruem in time. He diverted resources away from Beelzebub and flooded the area with scales to block Killua's path.
"Spiritual Rapier!"
As Killua retreated to avoid the hypnotic scales, Pouf condensed them into three high-density blades. Each one was coated in a lethal toxin capable of inducing paralysis or worse with a single scratch.
"Beelzebub!!"
He split his mass into four slightly smaller versions of himself, each wielding a rapier.
"This is the limit of how many I can create without losing combat effectiveness. It may not be elegant, but we shall surround and butcher you. That is all."
"Hah! I'd like to see you try!!"
The four Poufs attacked with perfect coordination, their rapiers and high-frequency vibrating wings creating a storm of steel and sound. Yet, Killua continued to fight them to a standstill, using Godspeed: Whirlwind to not only evade every strike but to land punishing counters.
The rapiers would touch his skin but fail to draw blood, sliding off his aura. Part of the reason for the stalemate was Pouf's extreme fear of losing more cells, but the primary reason was simply that Killua was now thatstrong.
Godspeed: Whirlwind was an automatic interception system. The moment an enemy's intent or attack touched Killua's aura, his body reacted. By keeping his aura as thin as a second skin, Killua prevented accidental triggers, allowing him to use lightning-fast reflexes to evade after contact was made. He was now a target that could only be threatened by the technical traps of Netero and Bisky, the cunning of Hisoka, or the unavoidable area-of-effect of Gon's Jajanken: Paper.
By the time Killua had exhausted three of his stored "batteries," his counters were becoming more accurate as he grew accustomed to Pouf's rhythm.
Pouf retreated, unable to land even a scratch. But as he created distance, Killua—who should have been unscathed—suddenly coughed up a spray of blood and dropped to one knee.
"Finally. It took longer than expected, but the curtain falls now. That is all."
"Impossible... I didn't breathe any in... I didn't leave any gaps in my aura for your scales to penetrate!"
Killua spat more blood. He was suffering from an attack on his internal organs—a weakness no amount of training can fully harden. He sensed five tiny versions of Pouf rampaging inside him. They were too deep to remove manually, and too close to his vital organs to incinerate with electricity.
"When I split with Beelzebub, the smaller the clones, the lower their cognitive ability and the slower they move. It was no easy task to wait for them to gather inside you after their infiltration."
"I'm not interested in your life story. I didn't give you an opening. I never took my eyes off you, so how did—...wait. Then?"
"You realized it? Yes. During the brief moment you were submerged in my Phantom Message. It was a backup plan I set in motion when I stopped the hypnosis, but one never knows what will bear fruit."
During the few seconds Killua had been trapped in the nightmare, Pouf had sent in microscopic clones. Too small to trigger the Whirlwind security system, they had bypassed his defenses. Some had been lost when Pouf released the massive scale cloud, but enough had survived to gather and begin shredding Killua's internals.
"It would be easy to finish you now, but they say a cornered rat will bite a cat. I shall simply wait for you to die."
Pouf chose to watch from a distance, wary of a final indiscriminate electrical discharge and hoping to capture the boy alive if possible. It was the "safe" move—but it gave Killua the time he needed.
"I guess it comes to this. I'm still not strong enough on my own."
Killua reached into his pocket. He didn't pull out a battery with his own face on it. Instead, he pulled out one depicting a massive, muscular, dazed-looking Gon.
Killua had dubbed these his Nen Batteries. They could store the aura of others for a short duration. Killua crushed the battery containing Gon's 200% Enhancement aura, temporarily making it his own.
A staggering quality and quantity of aura flooded Killua's system. If he relaxed his focus for even a second, the energy would physically blow him apart. Pouf, sensing the reckless power spike, retreated further, waiting for the aura to consume the boy.
(He likely won't survive this, but I've gained an incredible insight into human potential. That is enough. That is...)
"LIGHTNING EMPEROR: ORE-MIKAZUCHI!!"
The roiling aura spiraled with focused intent and was sucked into Killua's small frame. Aura normally erupts outwardfrom the nodes; for it to be sucked in meant it was affecting the user's own body. Killua's form began to glow with a blinding intensity, followed by a thunderous boom that sent lightning arcing in every direction.
"...What?"
Pouf blinked his dazzled eyes. Standing before him was no longer a boy shrouded in electricity. It was a humanoid shape of pure, white-hot lightning that flickered and shifted, barely maintaining a human silhouette.
"I can't hold this for long," the bolt of lightning spoke, its eyes fixed on Pouf. "Ending this in one shot."
Realizing his internal clones had been vaporized and sensing a lethal threat, Pouf and his clones scattered in different directions to flee. But as Pouf took to the sky, he looked up in horror. The Lightning Emperor was already above him.
A massive, spherical cage of lightning had been deployed around the area with Killua at its center. The scale of the ability was so far beyond anything Killua had shown before that Pouf felt a crushing weight of despair.
"LIGHTNING SHRINE: ORIGAMI."
In an instant, the interior of the cage was ravaged by a storm of bolts. A blinding flash and a roar that shook the earth signaled the total destruction of the zone.
When the silence returned, a portion of the grove had been completely erased. In the center of a charred clearing, Killua sat panting, his body trembling.
"Dammit... I survived, but it wasn't perfect!"
Killua's Ore-Mikazuchi wasn't an ability to transmute aura into electricity. He had used that in the past, but the nature of the ability had changed after the battle with the Phantom Troupe. It was an ability born of his desire to stand beside his "Monster" best friend—a choice to move beyond humanity.
It wasn't transmuting aura; it was transmuting himself into lightning.
He lacked the technical skill and the raw aura to achieve it normally, so he had used Gon's aura to force the transformation. But his previous injuries remained, and the form was unstable.
"...Son of a..."
Killua looked up. High in the air, a battered but living Shaiapouf remained.
The strike had been certain, erasing everything in the radius. But the true Pouf—acting on a final instinct of self-preservation—had been hiding at the very edge of his control range for the clones. He had barely escaped the destruction.
Killua was now out of aura and unable to move. Pouf had lost 70% of his total mass, but he was still functional. He looked down at Killua with a face of pure rage, then turned and flew at full speed toward the direction of Meruem.
"He's alive! I could kill him! But... I cannot afford to lose any more mass!!" Pouf screamed to himself.
If Killua had been unconscious, Pouf would have finished him. But even at his limit, the possibility of a final counter-strike from the "Lightning Emperor" was a risk Pouf couldn't take.
"To lose this much and fail to kill him... the disappointment will be absolute! I will be punished! But everything for Lord Meruem! If I must die, let it be by his hand!!"
Killua watched Pouf vanish into the distance. His strength spent, he fell onto his back and covered his eyes.
"Dammit. 'I'll be fine on my own'... yeah, right. In the end, I lost again!!"
Excluding training matches, Killua felt he had done nothing but lose since meeting Gon. The only fight he felt he'd won decisively was against Franklin. Even in a game of dodgeball, he'd been helpless against Razor.
"The gap is widening again. But... I'm not done yet."
The "Lightning Emperor" made a vow to the "Monster" who was undoubtedly evolving at this very moment.
"I'm gonna catch up, I swear. So you'd better win, Gon!!"
Having issued a challenge to his best friend, Killua surrendered to his exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep.