In a sudden shift, Hisoka instantly pulled back his outstretched leg and swung at Chrollo, who was stabbing toward him.
But to his surprise, Chrollo stepped forward mid-attack and landed a solid kick on Hisoka just as he was adjusting his stance.
"A feint?!"
Hisoka had reacted on instinct—a hurried, explosive move. But Chrollo's attack was deliberate, calculated, and perfectly timed. Their clash sent Hisoka tilting backward involuntarily.
In that exchange, Chrollo clearly had the upper hand.
Using the momentum from his kick, Chrollo leapt into the air. As Hisoka leaned back, exposed, Chrollo came down hard with a flurry of stomps.
Before the first blow landed, Hisoka curled into himself, arms and legs folded tightly to shield his body.
Bang! Bang!
Chrollo's relentless stomps hammered down like a storm, his strikes echoing through the arena. The crowd outside screamed in shock.
"Relentless stomps! Chrollo's not holding back at all!" the commentator cried out, her voice rising from the high platform.
Cheers erupted from Chrollo's supporters, while Hisoka's fans shouted in panic, cursing Chrollo in protest.
Another wave of shouting and insults swept through the stands, the chaos outside almost louder than the battle itself.
...
While defending as best he could, Hisoka's toes twitched slightly—just enough to activate the body of the referee he had kicked away earlier.
Bungee Gum!
When Hisoka had knocked the referee aside, he'd left a thread of Bungee Gum attached. Now, he yanked it tight—using the ref's body as an anchor to launch himself free and break out of Chrollo's pressure.
Boom!
But Chrollo had seen it coming. He evaded the flying referee with ease, sidestepping a split second before impact.
The referee tumbled to the ground, got back up groggily... only to become Chrollo's puppet once more, lunging straight toward Hisoka.
Hisoka seized the moment to retreat, flipping away and creating distance.
As the ref charged at him again, Chrollo barely visible behind, Hisoka could already piece together the trap.
"So he's using the referee as a meat shield… holding the antenna behind his back, waiting for a chance to plant it in me. Keeps me on constant alert, drains my focus..."
"In other words, he's going for a war of attrition... A deathmatch, eh?"
A wide, crazed grin crept onto Hisoka's lips. Instead of dodging, he lunged straight toward the charging ref.
"How delightful. You're taking this seriously, Chrollo! That makes me so happy~"
A fan of razor-sharp playing cards appeared in Hisoka's palm, aura sparking along their edges.
"I'll play with everything I've got!!"
Whoosh!
With a blur of motion, Hisoka's cards slashed into the referee's body.
But then—warning bells exploded in his mind.
Before the cut fully connected, Hisoka yanked himself back, launching into a backward flip.
The moment the referee's body separated from him—Boom!—a small explosion erupted from the corpse.
"What the..."
Eyes narrowing, Hisoka stared at the slowly collapsing referee—smoke rising—and saw Chrollo emerge behind him, calm and unharmed.
Chrollo raised both hands, displaying the backs to Hisoka. On them were symbols: a sun on one hand, a moon on the other, each surrounded by aura marks resembling polarities—positive and negative.
"Sun and Moon... ?"
In the VIP room, Ronnel recognized the symbols instantly. His memory flashed back to his own battle with Chrollo.
He had seen this ability before.
Back then, Chrollo had used the exact same technique.
...
Ronnel understood how it worked. But this was Hisoka's first time seeing it.
Still suspended mid-air thanks to Bungee Gum, Hisoka eyed Chrollo warily. This ability had caught him off guard.
He didn't mind the wide range of Nen abilities Chrollo could conjure up using the Skill Hunter, but—
There was no book in his hands.
He was using Sun and Moon… without the book?
"An ability that doesn't require the Skill Hunter … so his hands are free..."
Chrollo met his gaze and smiled.
"As you can see, this ability is all in the hands," he said calmly. "The left hand imprints the sun. The right…"
He began explaining the mechanics, each word slow and deliberate.
Hisoka listened in silence, suspended in the air, processing the implications.
All around them, the arena had gone completely still.
...
Even the rowdy crowd had fallen silent.
Because—
"Kill, kill, kill... killed?!"
Murmurs rose from the stands as realization set in.
Everyone knew the Heavens Arena hosted real battles. Fatalities weren't uncommon in death matches. The audience had developed a certain tolerance over time.
But this was different.
He'd killed the referee.
A professional referee, equipped with Heavens Arena's 2.0-grade gear—slain right in the middle of the ring.
It was too brazen. Too reckless.
One side slashed him with aura-charged cards, the other side rigged him with explosives.
The poor guy never stood a chance.
The crowd sat in stunned silence. And then—oddly enough—some of them even started to pity the referee.
...
They didn't know it yet, but in Yoshihiro Togashi's world, the audience always gets it the worst. Right after them—it's the referees~~~
And soon, they were about to receive a special "gift" from the fallen.
Because that explosion? It wasn't just meant for the referee.
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Fanfic is completed on patreon.com/FanficsHub (799 chapters in total)