Chapter 38: Own X Nen X Techniques

"Did you kill them?" Archi shouted out of rage at the big man in front of them. His eyes were filled with no fear, but anger.

"Hmm? What are you talking about, brat?" The man in his deep voice said, with glares of irritation given to the boy.

"The people in Kordi Region! Train 04! Did you kill them?!"

"I don't know what you're talking about... and I don't care about it." The big man said and sprinted towards the kid.

He was about to punch the kid with his enormous fists and aim for his stomach, but the latter dodged it and jumped to the air as high as he can.

"Hickory!" He finally summoned his weapon. Out of Nen, he conjured a kid-size mallet made out of hazel-colored wood and showed up in his hand.

He lifted his mallet in the air and struck the big man who was just standing on the ground with great force. But the latter stopped the attack with only one hand and the effect bounced off to the surroundings, leaving the cemented ground with small cracks.

"Is that all you've got, kid?" The man teased as a wide smirk formed in his face. He knew once his opponent will fight out of pure anger, they will be defeated easily. And this kid is one of them.

Michael just watched the battle below the ground, couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing. The kid he was once worried about was actually stronger than him, and he was fighting with a man ten times larger than him. But based on the current situation, the kid was outmatched.

But all of a sudden, Archi didn't react to the man's great defense, as every opponent should be. Instead, he sprinted back beside his client and guarded him using his mallet.

"That should be my line, old man." The kid harshly spoke at his enemy, while the madness that was once attached in his eyes is now gone. He tried to calm down.

'It's not him. According to the reports, the witnesses saw the man pulled out their hearts and crashed it. But this large man had a different method. Instead of using his tongue nails, he just used his fists to fight me.'

He thought. He guaranteed that wasn't the same man who massacred the passengers of the train, including his uncle, and might be just their acquaintances. But no matter he was just a colleague or not, he must catch him.

The enemy got irritated by what he said, and mindlessly sprinted towards him once more. He couldn't let a powerless kid insult him like that. His pride was too high that he will kill anyone who doesn't have the right to outrage him.

He clutched his hand into a fist and punched the kid, targeting his stomach again. But fortunately, he defended it with both of his arms formed into an 'X' to protect himself from the punch.

The enemy smirked out of excitement. He knew that the kid will block his punch out of his arms since he couldn't dodge and leave his client in danger. He finally concluded that he won, and expecting his arms up to his bones, to be crashed.

But when he released his punch, Archi's arm didn't change a thing. It was still a pair of arms with just slight damage. The big man's eyes widened out of shock and irritation.

And that's where he noticed something was wrong.

"What..." He spoke as he bit his lips. Now, he is the one fighting with pure anger, "What did you do to me?!"

He asked as he attacked with a series of punches towards Archi. Out of frustration, he was blinded and didn't know where his punches landed, but he knew that his opponent kept blocking it with his naked hands.

What did he do? What did he do? He wasn't strong like this before.

He thought and kept punching until he grew tired and his punches started to slow down. This gave the kid the opportunity to attack.

Since his arms weren't that strong enough to cause a lot of damage, he decided to kick the opponent far enough for him to guard. He raised one of his legs and struck the big man's stomach, causing him to fly over the other side of the small space.

"Fine. I'll tell you what happened to you." Archi said as he conjured his mallet again to protect his client, who was now speechless of what was happening.

"I used my Nen technique, the 'Purgatory' to you," Archi explained. "Once the moment you touched my Hickory, it measured the sins that you did in your life. The higher your sins, the worse your punishments are, and these punishments will reduce your power and store it in my 'Purgatory'. I can use all the power I stored in there whenever I want. And they won't vanish unless the sinner died."

"In other words," He added, with a calm expression. "The only way for you to get it back is by killing yourself."

This made the enemy more irritated and his mind was full of anger and desire to kill him.

"You brat!!!" He yelled and sprinted towards him with great force and used all of his power on both of his fists.

Archi readied his mallet to protect his client and to steal the man's power once more. He knew that his enemy was dangerous and too strong for him. So he will do his best to buy some time.

After all, she will come at any minute.

The man was about to punch him with all of his power as the latter tried to block it with his mallet. He knew this will bring him down.

But all of a sudden, a weapon struck the man's arm causing it to be chop and fell his hand on the ground. But that's not just any weapon. It was a trident with very odd metallic designs like various things were being attached to it. He screamed in pain because of the sudden attack and walked backward to avoid another strike.

"Good job, Archi." A female voice can be heard coming from the dark corner of the space. They all looked at the incoming third party.

When Archi saw her face, he smiled calmly and closed his eyes. He expected her to be here since his opponent showed up. The trident moved from the ground and went back to its owner.

"Took a long time, Master." He spoke to the newcomer. Then, a woman with purple hair revealed from the dark, which turned out to be Java.

"I lost my Hunter license, remember? So there are no freebies in transportation." She said as she pouted and walked towards her allies.

"Never mind that. Let's clean this up first." She added as he readied his trident while facing the opponent in front of them.

"No. YOU clean this up," Archi said with no expression in his face and started grabbing his things up. "I have a mission to fulfill. YOUR mission."

Michael also stood up and grabbed his backpack even though he doesn't have a clue of what's happening.

"Oh come on!" Java complained about her student's behavior. They were always fighting wherever they go and that's not almost a problem to them both.

She just watched the two of them walked away from them, continuing their goal in the village.

"Fine. I'll deal with this myself." She said out of irritation and turned around to see her opponent. She was slightly shocked by what she saw.

She thought she handled the opponent's arm, but then, she saw it being regenerated back to his body, which really is bad news for her.

"Well, this is interesting."

***

"First comes rock!" Gon shouted with enthusiasm as he readied his fist.

He told us earlier that he finally have decided on a Nen technique and about to show it to us. Sometimes, I admire him for being able to think of an idea so fast.

And all I did in my test was to enhance the object I'm attached to, the bandages. Maybe I can think of a technique for that.

"Rock... Paper... Rock!"

Then, he punched the big rock in front of him, resulting in it being destroyed into small pebbles. I clapped as I understand his concept bit by bit. So it's a rock-paper-scissors game.

He repeated his words again and readied his fighting stance.

"Rock... Paper... Paper!"

He released his palm in the far distance, about to do something very explosive as the previous one, but to our surprise, nothing happened.

"Bisky, how do I make my Nen fly?"

After he said that, all of us face- palmed in front of him. I can't believe he gave us that big hope just to give us nothing. That kinda expected from Gon.

"Train more!" Bisky shouted. I can't help but laugh at what happened.

"So the paper is an Emitter technique?" Killua said as he tried to understand Gon's Nen technique. The latter nodded, confirming his classification.

Then, that means, Scissors is a Transmuter technique. Woah! I can't believe Gon think all of that through just by Bisky's explanation about the martial arts behind the game. I don't know if I can do something creative like that.

"When you were talking about rock-paper-scissors, it hit me. Because I like that game." Gon explained.

"Trusting your instincts is important." Bisky started to lecture us on advice. I listened eagerly since I'm still not sure how to make my Nen technique. "Your gut plays a big role in techniques that require multiple Nen categories. The key is that it should feel right to you."

When I heard that, I can't help but think deeply about my technique. Trusting my instincts... and what should feel right to me...

"Ahem." Killua tried to catch our attention by making a fake cough. All of us turned around to see him and what he was about to do.

He raised both of his pointy fingers and faced them with each other. After a short amount of time, electricity was being released between their spaces.

I couldn't help but be amazed by what he did, and as well as my other friends. After all this time, Killua already hiding something from us. Does that hurt?

"Awesome, Killua! You're like an electric eel!" Gon shouted at him, which obviously, he didn't accept it as a compliment. I couldn't help but laugh at them, playing and having fun together.

"What about you, Secco?" Bisky asked me with a genuine smile on her face. They all stopped on what they were doing and all turned around to see me. I couldn't help but get nervous. Maybe they won't like my idea, since I'm not really that creative in making ideas.

But I've already decided. I can feel that it was right for me.

"I-I don't know how to showcase it yet. But ever since I was young, my bandages are always in me to conceal my arm." I started explaining. "Every time I have them, I can always feel relaxed and don't have to worry about my arm going berserk. So maybe I can do something with it, and focus on my defense more."

"Hmm. That's a reasonable technique." Bisky complimented and started to add some suggestions. "It can also work with healing since it's a bandage."

"Healing?" Gon asked with curiosity. When I heard, that gave me an idea for my technique. And it really fits in my concept.

"Yeah. But it's a bit of a challenge to learn it." She answered.

"I'll do my best!~" I yelled enthusiastically and really fired up to learn more Nen right now. This technique of mine might work out. As I spitted those words from my mouth, I heard Killua chuckled at his position. We turned around to see him, and curious about what he was laughing about. Did I say something wrong?

"You're back to normal, finally," Killua said after a series of chuckles coming from him.

What he said made me surprise, but also made me smile a little bit. I turned around and all of them are smiling warmly to me.

I'm really glad I'm back to normal, without any worries about them leaving me.