Shizuku crouched beside Liam, studying the dense black symbols carved into the cabin floor. Her glasses slipped down her nose slightly. She pushed them back up with one finger, eyes never leaving the strange markings.
"It's Nen script," Liam said.
Shizuku looked at him, waiting.
Liam pressed his hand flat against the symbols, letting his aura pool in his palm. The effect was immediate. His aura regenerated faster, like someone had flipped a switch. His whole body felt lighter, warmer, like he was getting a massage from invisible hands. It was absurdly comfortable.
"I'm not an expert on this stuff," Liam continued, "but basically, some Nen users can infuse their abilities into written symbols. It works like a tool. A storage system for Nen."
He paused, thinking. Nen script didn't show up often in the manga. Wing had used it on Gon's fingers during training, tying cloth bands with symbols to restrict his aura flow. Ging had left a box covered in script for Gon on Greed Island. Razor's underling had carved symbols on his ring to assist with teleportation punches.
In a way, Nen script was the Hunter x Hunter equivalent of sealing scrolls from Naruto. Ninjas sealed jutsu and weapons in their scrolls. Hunters sealed specific Nen techniques in written symbols.
"The script in this cabin is probably infused with Enhancement-type Nen," Liam said, running his fingers over the symbols. "Someone stored their recovery ability in physical form. When it touches our aura, it activates automatically."
Shizuku tilted her head. "Why did it activate? We didn't do anything."
"Didn't we?" Liam grinned. "You've been using Ten this whole time, right? Wrapping your body in aura. It's instinct by now. Even if Ten doesn't regenerate aura as fast as Zetsu, it's way better than letting your aura leak naturally. An ordinary person wouldn't do that automatically."
"Oh." Shizuku nodded.
"Or," Liam added, "the activation condition might just be 'having a certain level of aura.' Either way, drawing this stuff is ridiculously tedious. Time-consuming, energy-draining, and once it's drawn, you can't move it. Not very useful in combat."
Shizuku nodded again. "Oh."
Liam studied the script for a few more minutes, tracing the patterns with his eyes, but he couldn't figure out the specific syntax or structure. Whoever had drawn this knew what they were doing.
Eventually, he gave up and sat down on the bench opposite Shizuku. The Ferris wheel rotated slowly, lifting them higher and higher above the amusement park. The lights below shrank into a glowing carpet of neon.
Shizuku stared out the window at the other cabins, all dark and silent. "Are there symbols in those too?"
"No idea." Liam leaned back, studying her profile. Then, casually, he asked, "Why did you agree so easily?"
"Hm?" Shizuku turned, her expression as blank as ever. "Agree to what?"
"To accepting me as your boss," Liam said, smiling. "You lost an arm-wrestling match and immediately agreed to work for me. You could've just walked away and ignored the bet. We're on a Ferris wheel. Where are you going to run?"
They'd almost reached the peak now. Shizuku looked out at the sprawling park below, the rides spinning, the crowds moving like ants. "I'm not running. You're the boss."
"Then let me test you. What's my code name?"
Shizuku frowned slightly, thinking. "Number One."
"Good memory." Liam leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "First rule of The Ten: listen to the boss. Remember that?"
"I remember." Shizuku paused. "Wasn't it called something else?"
Liam waved a hand. "Details. The Ten is easier to say."
"What does it mean?"
"What does what mean?"
"The Ten."
Liam grinned. "It's a parallel to the Twelve Zodiacs. They have twelve elites. We'll have ten. Simpler structure. Less bureaucracy. More efficient."
Shizuku accepted this without comment. She turned back to the window.
The Ferris wheel crested the highest point and began its descent. Liam stretched his arms along the back of the bench, legs crossed. His feet didn't quite reach the floor. He hated being short.
"Shizuku," he said, "have you ever heard of the Dark Continent?"
"No."
Liam suspected that even if she had heard of it, she would've forgotten by now. Shizuku's memory was selective. Things she didn't care about evaporated the moment she stopped paying attention. The Dark Continent was one of the Hunter World's best-kept secrets, deliberately hidden from mainstream society, cordoned off by international treaty. If she'd encountered it before, she'd probably wiped it from her brain within five minutes.
The Ferris wheel descended smoothly, the cabin swaying slightly.
Liam spread his arms wider, grinning up at the ceiling. "First goal of The Ten: reach the Dark Continent. We're going there. No exceptions."
"Oh." Shizuku looked at him, curious now. "What kind of place is it?"
"That's the thing. Nobody knows. That's why I want to go."
"Oh." Shizuku nodded, like this made perfect sense.
Liam started listing off the scraps of information he remembered from the manga. Immortality Rice that extended lifespans. An ancient city buried in ruins. Unknown life forms that defied classification. A landmass hundreds, maybe thousands of times larger than the known human world.
Shizuku's eyes lit up behind her glasses, just slightly. Curiosity sparked. She leaned forward, listening intently.
Liam wondered how long that curiosity would last. Give it a day, maybe two, and she'd probably forget the entire conversation.
"You still haven't answered my question," Liam said, circling back. "Normally, losing a fight doesn't mean you pledge your loyalty to someone. Are you really okay with this?"
Shizuku tilted her head. "Are you worried I'll betray you?"
"A little," Liam admitted. "Things that come easy tend to leave just as fast."
"I won't."
This time, she didn't dodge. "I didn't have anything real to do anyway. If I listen to you, at least I'll have something to do."
It was casual. But there was weight behind it, something unsaid.
Before Liam could press further, a small black shape hurtled out of the night sky and slammed into the cabin window with a sharp thunk.
Shizuku turned. A gray bird clung to the ouzdtside of the glass, tiny claws gripping the window frame, beak pecking furiously at the pane.
Liam waved at it. "Calm down, you little menace."
Liam looked back at Shizuku. "Have you been traveling alone?"
"Yeah," Shizuku said. "Mostly."
"So what are you doing before all of this?."
"I was looking for people."
"Looking for who?"
Shizuku looked at him steadily. "People from my hometown. Meteor City."
Liam's reaction was not what she expected. His eyes lit up with genuine interest. "Wait. Does Meteor City really have eight million people?"
Shizuku blinked. "I don't know."
"You don't know, or you don't remember?"
"I don't remember."
Liam leaned back, processing. Eight million people would make Meteor Citythe size of a small country. And yet it existed in a legal gray zone, unrecognized by any government, a stateless dumping ground for everything the world wanted to forget.
"Did you find the people you were looking for?" Liam asked.
He had a pretty good guess who she meant. The Phantom Troupe. In the manga, during the Chimera Ant arc, when one of the disbanded ant division leaders tried to set up shop in Meteor City, the residents had called in several Troupe members to handle the problem. That alone proved the Troupe had serious clout there.
"No," Shizuku said.
"What kind of people are they?"
Shizuku's lips twitched. Just barely. "I don't know anything about them. That's why I'm curious."
Liam blinked. Then he started laughing.
Shizuku frowned. "Why are you laughing?"
"Because," Liam said, grinning, "you just said the exact same thing I said about the Dark Continent. Word for word."
Shizuku paused. Then, slowly, the corners of her mouth lifted. A smile. Tiny, fleeting, but unmistakable.
"You smiled," Liam said, pointing at her.
"Did I?"
"You did. Just now. It disappeared fast." Liam stood, walked over, and pressed his index fingers to the corners of Shizuku's mouth, gently pushing them upward. "You're always so blank-faced. It's easy to notice when something changes."
Shizuku considered this. "Maybe it's because the conversation was similar. I thought it was interesting."
Liam studied her expression. It reminded him of a scene from the manga, during the Yorknew City arc. Shizuku had read Chrollo's fortune poem, the one predicting her death, and her face had been exactly like this. Blank. Unbothered. No fear. No sadness. Just quiet acceptance.
"What about you?" Shizuku asked, looking up at him.
"Me?" Liam stepped back, grinning. "Long story. Maybe I'll tell you later."
"Oh." Shizuku didn't push. She pointed at the gray bird still battering the window. "Do you want to deal with that?"
The bird stopped pecking.
The Ferris wheel descended the final stretch, the illuminated cabin lowering toward the ground. Liam stood and hopped off the bench as the cabin came to a stop.
"Second rule of The Ten," he said, turning to Shizuku. "Members help each other, don't interfere with each other, and don't betray each other."
Shizuku looked at him. "Okay."
"You're smiling again."
"Oh. Am I?"
"Yeah."
The cabin door opened. They stepped out into the cool night air. The gray bird dive-bombed immediately, and Liam caught it one-handed.
"What's wrong with you?" Liam flicked the bird's head lightly.
It chirped twice, indignant.
Shizuku stared. "That's your pet?"
"Pet? I picked this thing up on the side of the road." Liam released it, and the bird landed on his shoulder, pecking his cheek in retaliation.
They walked away from the Ferris wheel, strolling through the amusement park. The crowd had thinned. Most of the rides were winding down for the night.
Liam stopped suddenly. Shizuku looked at him, curious.
He turned back, staring at the dark silhouette of the Ferris wheel against the night sky. The lights had been extinguished. It blended into the darkness, ominous and silent.
"The founder of Blanchett Company is a Professional Hunter," Liam said, half to himself. "Alain Dreyfus Blanchett. Maybe he's the one who drew that script."
He turned to Shizuku. "Nen script is visible to the naked eye, right?"
"Yeah."
"And objects created by Conjurers are physical. Before they're dismissed and turned back into aura, there's no difference between them and real items."
Liam was thinking out loud now, piecing it together. In the manga, when Kurapika fought Uvogin, Uvogin couldn't tell if the chain on Kurapika's hand was a real chain or a Nen construct, even with Gyo. It looked real. It felt real. It was real, for all practical purposes.
Nen script worked the same way. The symbols were physical, carved or drawn into surfaces. Ordinary people could see them, but to non-users, they'd just look like weird scribbles. Gibberish. Decorative nonsense.
Shizuku tilted her head. "What are you thinking?"
Liam grinned. "Ochima's investigation. If we keep wandering around the forest randomly, we're not going to find anything. So let's change the goal. We focus on finding Nen script. Blanchett Company owns most of this island. If they used script in one place, they might've used it elsewhere."
Shizuku nodded slowly. "That makes sense."
The gray bird chirped again, fluffing its feathers.
Liam scratched it under the chin absently, already planning. If Nen script was scattered around the island, it meant something was being hidden. Something important.
And if there was one thing Liam had learned in this world, it was that important things were always worth stealing.