𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐄 | ʰˣʰ

chapter iii.

A BLOODIED face drags its body around the outer corner of the tunnel you've all just exited. Scraggly short blond hair drips blood over sharp, curved brows.

He raises a shaking finger to point at Satotz and screams hoarsely, "He's an imposter! He's not the real examiner. I am!"

Your gaze follows his accusing hand to Satotz, whose brows only raise slightly, overall unimpressed, and you snap your eyes back at the so-called 'real examiner,' who has now dragged a Man-Faced Ape out into view.

The crowd murmurs in uncertainty now, and their voices rise to shouts in indecision, grating in your ears.

Gyo tells you immediately: Satotz is the examiner. You don't know much about the Exam, but it's pretty much common sense that the Examiners all use nen.

On the other hand, the aura nodes of the man who's just appeared are closed, just like an ordinary human or animal.

Then—

It's like a tightrope snapping while someone stands on it. It's another way to search for the true examiner.

It's unnecessary.

And you need to move.

You sense it less than a second before it happens, you jerk your head out of the way before you really process, sheer instinct snatching the reins from you. Three playing cards whiz past you in a blur of red, close enough to have sliced your ear right off if you hadn't dodged.

In front of you, Satotz holds up the cards Number 44 threw between his fingers, and to your left, the man who claimed to be examiner lies dead, head split open down the forehead by the force the cards were thrown with.

The playing cards have cut a clean line through flesh and bone, in a little vertical line almost deserving of applause. Small bits of flayed skin fall to the side to reveal the cards have struck themselves deep into the thing's brain.

He lies in a growing pool of his own blood, blood not red enough to be human.

The crowd has parted for the path the cards took, as if weapons no longer aimed there will still strike them. They all stare wide-eyed at Number 44, the clean-cutter clown, as he shuffles a deck in his hands.

When he speaks, some of the people closer to him jump a little. "He's the real deal ♡. Any Hunter could catch that."

"I will take that as a compliment. Satotz flicks away the cards he caught and your eyes catch beads of red forming between his fingers when he does. He fixes his steady stare onto 44's—Has Satotz ever blinked? "However, next time you attack me, for any reason, will be reason to disqualify you immediately. Understood?"

"Sure ♢," 44 agrees, perhaps a too easily.

When everyone's attention shifts to the vultures that come to peck at the dead man's brain, the air near the back of your neck turns heavy, and you glance over your shoulder to see Number 44 looking right at you, slight curve to his mouth.

You curl your lip and turn back around.

Someone needs to leash that fucking dog.

+

PEOPLE START disappearing very rapidly once the actual trek starts.

The fog dulls their perceptions and the screams peck at their nerves like the birds that lead some to their deaths far below.

You've gotten past this particular tough patch safely—Last you saw of that group, Kurapika was slamming his bokken into a Noggin-Luggin' Tortoise's eye.