Speckles of light gathered and shaped into the short blade, then settled back on the south wall.
Giyu Tomioka and Urokodaki, still not asleep, sat up and lit the oil lamp. Examining it closely… the latter rubbed the blade and said, "It's Roy's short sword, no mistake."
Everyone stared at one another. "…"
They looked, fell silent— a blade that can "travel" on its own. Just like Roy: unbelievable in every way.
After a moment, Sabito said, "Let's ask Roy in the morning."
He was sure this was tied to the boy.
The boy, meanwhile, slept like a stone—leaving a room full of adults and ghosts fretting over his sword with nothing useful to say.
"Sleep," the old man said. Dawn wasn't far; he could wait.
Giyu nodded and snuffed the lamp.
There was a little rustling, and the hut sank back into quiet.
…
Hunter x Hunter World.
In the quiz town.
Roy dismissed the conjured short blade and closed his hand around the staff-sword stuck in the ground.
He smiled to Nakajima Sachiko. "We won't trouble you further."
His ear flicked—footfalls at the mouth of the alley. The latecomers: other examinees.
Sachiko smiled and nodded. Through the children she shared her vision: a pair of boys emerged from the trees and halted at the town gate. The left one's face was studded with nails, blank-eyed; the right wore a blue cap and a katana at his hip, eyes sharp—no docile sort.
What a handful this batch is, she sighed to herself. She had the children pull open the gate to the next exam, and, with a pasted-on smile, told Roy, "There's a cedar on the hill. The guide lives there."
As for whether the "guide" would give these kids a shortcut… she couldn't promise. The man's status was special, and she didn't have his number anyway.
"Rumble—" The heavy stone gate rolled back, revealing a long, dim corridor.
Roy dipped his head to Sachiko and, under the eyes of Ilumi and Kite arriving at his heels, stepped in first. Gotoh and Kuraging flanked him and followed.
The stone shut behind them.
Ilumi and Kite were left facing Sachiko, each thinking their thoughts.
"…Someone's been watching us the whole time, Master." In the passage, Gotoh caught faint whirring. Touchy about cameras, he'd already spotted a handful of angles.
"Of course," Kuraging murmured. She glanced toward the glints of red LEDs, then, struggling to keep pace, added between breaths, "The exam began when we boarded the ship. 'Official' versus 'unofficial'—the Association changes the label whenever it pleases."
She edged closer to Roy. A woman's sixth sense told her the lenses seemed to linger on her. She lifted her chin toward the sky—up on the airship.
Netero noticed her glance and chuckled. "Sharp girl. That garb isn't ordinary."
"Kurta," Bean said, quick to recognize. He darted a glance at Zeno and chose his words with care. "Those old-line peoples… their prospects are bleak. If she's testing, it's likely to support her clan."
Diplomatic phrasing, but the subtext warned Zeno that the girl's motives weren't purely personal.
Hands behind his back, face unreadable, Zeno didn't care.
Clan this, tribe that—so long as she's got hips for children, anything else, the Zoldycks can level.
What drew him more was Roy.
Netero's quip had merit: with the sun as a mental object, the boy's heart was anything but small. Conjuring a proper Nen Beast wouldn't be easy. The stronger the "image" born of koan—the more like Zeno's Dragon Head, or Netero's Hundred-type Guanyin—the harder the development.
He frowned, silent… until Netero, as if reading him, mused, "Sun and beast… can't picture what that even looks like."
Dragons and guanyin each mapped to something real. The former exists; the Zoldycks keep one. The latter borrows the icon of a bodhisattva; statues stand in a thousand homes. But "sun" and "beast"? Separately, easy—both everywhere. Together? No anchor to grab.
"Age dulls the imagination," Zeno said—whether mocking the Chairman, himself, or both. He kept his eyes on Roy moving down the corridor, deep in thought, clearly wrestling the same problem. Kuraging and Gotoh noticed and held their tongues.
After roughly an hour, a glimmer of light showed ahead—
They hurried. The passage opened onto a small, glittering lake.
A skiff was moored at the shore. Kuraging and Gotoh climbed in and took the oars. Roy vaulted to the prow, rose and fall with the swell, and stared into the water, turning Sachiko's words over and over—"Because the desire was deepest here, the doll took shape."
He began to lash his thinking to his object—the sun.
Like Biscuit's yearning for youth conjured Cookie-chan; like Razor's love of volleyball conjured the "14 Devils."
Nen beasts are not pulled from the void. All of it obeys heart. So it must come back to the sun. Build a beast from it.
The idea caught; his vision cleared; his gaze hardened. He scanned the banks and the lakebed. Stone tablets lay half-sunk, carved with unknown characters.
"Relics of the Ancient Inkfolk," Kuraging said, poised over the oar, "They had a flowering civilization once." She… continued "rowing air."
Gotoh cut her a look. He couldn't do much about her.
She saw Roy watching. "I don't know the rest. If you want the details, I can look when I'm home."
"No need," Roy said.
"We have an expert."
He glanced into the trees; Gotoh snapped a coin, wrapped in En, past Roy's cheek to the spot where his eyes had fixed.
"Master, a fox!"
Ping— A long-clawed paw flicked the coin back; Gotoh caught it out of the spin.
He sprang up, but a milky-white Nen line lanced the air faster than the coin, yanked something screaming from the brush, and dropped it at Roy's feet.
"Really is a fox." Kuraging stared. The creature stood as tall as two men; a pair of raw wings bulged under its ribs—could it fly?
"Ow, ow—do you greet your guide like this?" it yelped.
"Guide?" Gotoh frowned.
Kuraging said nothing.
The fox flopped onto the boards, sprang up, and flowed into the shape of a woman. She shot them a glare. "That's right—your guide."
She bared her teeth at Roy, right where the Nen line still cinched her ankle and ran to his hand.
Damn brat. Young, but his shaping is sharp…
"You dare bare fangs at Master?" Gotoh's eyes narrowed. He glanced at Roy. "Master, better to kill her."
A beast thinking a human guise makes her a guide? Laughable.
Kuraging frowned but held her peace. She suspected the "fox-girl" spoke truth.
Roy recalled the line and looked the woman over, eyes lingering on the mark at her wrist. He wasn't worried she'd get away. "You her mother," he asked evenly, "or the fox-daughter?"
In the story, a family of "Kiriko" lived under the cedar: father, mother, child. This one had taken a woman's form—so female.
The fox-girl flinched; her eyes showed a shade of fear.
Roy smiled. "I don't mean you harm. But I do wonder—what ties your mark to these inkfolk glyphs?"
Lost civilizations and a beast that "kept" their ruins—the thread tugged. He nearly had it, but not quite.
The fox edged back, startled that the boy had outed her, and even knew something of her kind. She swallowed. "A 'divine script.' Same as my mark, born with it. Father said…"
"It's ancestor worship. Keep faith and sacrifices, and the God sends oracles and 'blessings.' The mark proves the blessing…"
"God." "Worship." Roy frowned and chewed the words. In the old account, she would tell Kuraging the same—little different.
"Splash—"
"Master—she jumped!"
While he was thinking, the woman dove and streaked for shore.
A fox is sly. Gotoh moved to give chase, but Roy stayed him.
"Let her go. We'll meet again."
The woman had been right: she was a guide—along with her brother and parents.
"So she is the guide." Kuraging heard the undertone and turned, just in time to catch herself staring at Roy.
He never looked after the fox. He kept turning "god" and "worship" over, eyes gone far away, his face glowing with the lake's light.
Yes—god and worship. The ancients, and beasts like these, all had their ancestor totems…
As a transmigrant and reborn man, he'd almost forgotten his previous life. Without that other life, there would be no "Door of Cognition." How could he forget?
A man walks the present and aims for the future—but must not lose the past.
In that other world's myths, the sun was everywhere.
Kua Fu chasing the sun…
The three-legged crow driving the sun's chariot…
Golden Crow… Golden Crow… Roy's eyes flared; his smile sharpened; his gaze blazed.
Three legs in the sun, jade hare in the moon. A golden crow pulls the day—sun and divine beast.
"My beast will be the Three-Legged Golden Crow."
His heart set; the path cleared.
Boom.
All his pores flew open.
Ren surged like flame from him, kindling a ring of red wind. Kuraging scarcely grasped what had changed when two great red hands scooped her and Gotoh and set them gently on the far bank.
They blinked and turned. In the lake's heart—
Roy stood with both palms raised, True Heat playing over his hands. He closed his eyes and built the Three-Legged Golden Crow in his mind.
Sss—sssss—
The water warmed, boiled, bubbled, steamed.
Red Nen ran wild; wherever it reached, smoke lifted, kindled, burned, melted—
The fox-girl, scrambling from the water into the trees, felt heat on her back. She looked—and her narrow eyes bulged. She missed her footing and went shrieking down the slope.
"F-fire—?"
"What is that red Nen?"
Fear of the unknown hammered the nerves. Flames raced the woods, and hidden cameras whined under the heat—
Alarms chirped in a mad chorus.
Aboard the Association airship, an old man sat up; another's pupils pinholed. Both stared dumbstruck at the boy in the lake. Behind him, they thought they saw wings of light spread—huge, lambent, searing.
A cry rolled out like a temple bell, shaking marrow—
DONG—
Ears rang; hearts stumbled.
"Are you daft? Cover your ears!"
"Are you blind? Mine have been covered!"
Kuraging clapped her ears a beat before Gotoh could bark the order.
In the burning ring, the lake steaming, the forest blazing, language failed. They stared, stunned, at the lake's heart—
Wings of light unfurled behind the boy, and from that blaze, a great bird of chased gold slowly flew forth.