Hunter x Hunter: War of the Anime Worlds

Since his eyes were already useless, he could only rely on En—his expanded aura field—to sense his surroundings for the moment.

Xiang Nan focused.

Hisoka's extremely high‑speed movement couldn't last long; the number of aura "bands" on his body was limited. Each time he accelerated or changed direction, he had to release one. Still, for a certain period this style of fighting made Xiang Nan's eyes practically worthless. Even if he could vaguely feel Hisoka's trajectory, his body simply couldn't keep up with that speed.

Step three!

Xiang Nan fixed a perimeter in his mind and spread his aura outward with precise control. The downside was that his aura consumption now far exceeded Hisoka's. In a sense, Hisoka's planning had bought him a real advantage.

Whoosh!

The instant Xiang Nan released his En, a razor‑sharp black blur slashed toward him. Two weapons, both coated in aura—one a scalpel, the other a playing card—collided.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

As the two figures crossed paths, attack and defense were pushed to the limit. Fists, feet, and stances shifted madly; neither dared hesitate for even half a beat. At one point Xiang Nan swung his scalpel as a feint; the moment Hisoka reacted, a fist hidden by his own body shot forward—yet it still missed. Hisoka had released another length of Bungee Gum and vanished from Xiang Nan's flank.

Xiang Nan's pupils tightened. After dozens of rapid exchanges, this had happened more than once. Hisoka seemed wary of Xiang Nan's fists—or rather, the white gloves Xiang Nan had materialized on his hands.

Thud, thud, thud.

Retreating, Hisoka flicked several cards like blades. Xiang Nan's scalpel aura swept them to the ground, but the severed halves suddenly shot up from where they'd embedded themselves, stabbing at the back of his head. The tails of Xiang Nan's yellow coat whipped as he dodged, already prepared.

"Heh‑heh… how long can you maintain that En?"

The underground chamber echoed with Hisoka's drifting laughter.

"And you're almost out of that disgusting chewing gum of yours, aren't you?" Xiang Nan shot back.

"You seem to understand my fighting style rather well," Hisoka replied.

The fallen cards were still under his control—and hidden with In—yet Xiang Nan, as though expecting it, had seen right through the trick, keeping continuous Gyo on his eyes.

This guy… Hisoka thought. He must have heard something about my abilities from Machi and the others. Add his analyst's mind and battle experience, and he's pieced together some of the rules.

Just then Hisoka appeared overhead at an impossible angle, dropping like a spider hanging upside down. It was a surprising vector because the battlefield was an open underground space with no cover, so opponents instinctively ignored threats from above. Even with En, reacting to an attack aimed at one's crown was half a beat slower—motions were longer, leverage points different. In a duel between masters, such tiny details could tip the scales.

Xiang Nan's first instinct was to evade, not block. He started to leap back—and suddenly felt resistance under his sole. Something sticky was on his shoe.

Hisoka's Bungee Gum.

Swish!

A razor card flashed. At the same time Xiang Nan flung a throwing knife in what looked like a panicked counter to force Hisoka back, but the hasty move posed no real threat.

Blood sprayed through the air. Hanging in midair, Hisoka's face flushed; tongue lapping the blood on his card, his breathing grew ragged—ecstatic. A few meters away, Xiang Nan now stood barefoot, a gash on his jaw; he'd slipped out of his shoes at the last instant.

I kept watching his cards, tracking his hidden In and the pull‑lines of his gum, Xiang Nan analyzed. Under my constant Gyo, he shouldn't have been able to attach aura to my body. I must have stepped into a trap he set beforehand, guided there by his earlier attacks. From a normal angle the sole of a shoe is hard to see—even with Gyo.

And there was no discomfort in my foot, meaning the gum was just a sliver—small enough that I wouldn't notice, but enough to hinder me…

Xiang Nan narrowed his eyes.

"What a pity—I missed," Hisoka said in a warped tone. "Because you know my powers so well, you're forced to fix your attention on only a few places."

He laughed, stepping forward. "Your ability's activation condition must be touching my body, right? Those gloves…"

"So I just have to tag you once—what's the problem?" Xiang Nan smiled back. "You're not shy, are you?"

"Of course not. If you can manage it, give it a try." Hisoka's eyes glazed with pleasure. "But first, a present."

He charged again. Mid‑sprint his arm twisted, and the woman cowering in the corner—Manman—was yanked off her feet by an aura thread and hurled like a weight between them. Hisoka exploited everything: speed, hidden aura traps, even a bystander.

At that moment Manman's danger sense failed; she didn't switch to her second personality in time. Hisoka was simply too fast, his aura perfectly concealed. The only ways Xiang Nan could handle it were: (1) destroy Manman's body outright so she wouldn't obstruct him, freeing his hands to meet the attack; or (2) dodge—except Hisoka knew Xiang Nan wouldn't, because Hisoka himself could evade. If Xiang Nan opened distance, Manman would die.

Bang!

Xiang Nan chose to catch her. The instant he did, Hisoka's delighted face appeared right in front of him.

"Ha‑ha‑ha!"

A flower card, edge‑on, aimed to split Xiang Nan's skull from the brow down. But the next second Hisoka's expression froze—his card stopped less than a centimeter from Xiang Nan's face as a massive force blasted him away, contorting his body. Xiang Nan's coiled fist then hammered Hisoka's cheek, bones cracking as the magician's trajectory changed and he crashed, bounced, and tumbled across the floor like a rag doll.

Xiang Nan set the shocked Manman down and walked barefoot toward Hisoka. "You may have engineered the attack, but using a woman's body blocked your own sight as well as mine. The intel you've gathered is based only on what I've shown since the fight began, plus what you heard from Machi. If at any point I unleash something outside your model, your reasoning collapses—be it my tactics, my reactions, or my raw durability."

Both fighters had grown through "scripted training," but Hisoka held the initiative; Xiang Nan was reactive. Yet Xiang Nan now possessed Riot of the Blood: his physical abilities were far beyond when he'd fought the Phantom Troupe, and his mental strength had grown too. From the start he'd suppressed his brute strength, letting Hisoka believe only his aura had advanced while overlooking his body.

During Manman's interception Xiang Nan, boosted by full strength and speed, had tossed a knife that severed one of Hisoka's Bungee Gum bands.

"You've only got two gum strings left," Xiang Nan said. "Using a person to create an opening exposes your approach vector. I can tell which remaining thread has the strongest tension—cut that and it's over. Before, with so many lines, I couldn't be sure, but now it's easy."

"Of course you wouldn't make such a basic mistake. Your idea was sound: interfere with me using a human shield. Normally the momentum of a thrown body would lock me for a second or two—time enough for you to kill me. But it had no effect; with my strength that threat was negligible. You missed my burst of power and the knife slice; your senses and expectations were fooled."

Before Xiang Nan could close in, Hisoka—who'd lain like a heap of meat—suddenly flipped up and sprang back. His jaw hung dislocated, face smashed and bloody, even blood trickling from ears and nostrils. Xiang Nan was right: it wasn't that Hisoka hadn't noticed the knife, but that Xiang Nan's sudden surge exceeded the "awareness frequency" Hisoka had grown accustomed to. His brain simply hadn't adapted yet—a deception that would only work once.

Both men were constantly scheming on multiple levels.

Though badly hurt, Hisoka's eyes shone with deeper rapture. The sensation was divine.

"Want to keep going?" Xiang Nan raised his gloved hand. "You know once I hit you, your odds drop to zero."

"All I did was gamble on that one moment," he added. "If we continue, neither of us benefits."

He still had to deal with intruders outside and didn't want to waste more energy. True, Xiang Nan's chances were higher, but a life‑and‑death brawl would leave him in bad shape. Already, his aura expenditure far exceeded Hisoka's.

Yet Hisoka couldn't speak—his manic gaze answered: he wanted more. He wanted the thrill.

Xiang Nan's eyes chilled. Lips moved softly, diagnosing this "patient" with a fatal condition—a prerequisite for his ability. Even whispered, Hisoka could hear, and as a patient he had to receive the information. The moment he did, he snapped a finger without blinking—self‑mutilation to interfere with Xiang Nan's power, forcing a "misdiagnosis" and stopping the white glove from turning red with additional effects. He was the first opponent ever to break Xiang Nan's ability mid‑activation.

Seeing it, Xiang Nan's pupils shrank. Did Hisoka figure this out himself, or had someone in the Phantom Troupe deduced it by watching him fight Machi? He'd only used the outermost layer of his power then—how? Scout? Shalnark? For the first time Xiang Nan felt shock from another character.

A misdiagnosis meant he had to re‑assess and re‑attack. Even so, one hit would still force Hisoka to injure himself again or otherwise alter his state. Both were wounded—Hisoka worse—but Xiang Nan had less aura left. Now that Hisoka had recalibrated to the new power level, the next phase would be a true slugfest.

The window I caught was too brief, Xiang Nan thought. If I'd drawn the scalpel instead of punching, even a fraction of a second's delay would've let him evade with his last gum thread.

There was no point replaying it now. Twin torrents of aura flared once more. The fight had yet to reach its climax.

Just then chaotic footsteps echoed from the corridor—the exit to the underground space.

"Someone's coming!" Xiang Nan's face changed. It was the group of Hunter examinees who'd left earlier.

He and Hisoka exchanged a glance and simultaneously suppressed their aura. Xiang Nan stood still while Hisoka's figure flickered and disappeared into the darkness.

~~~

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