Abiji Nha once told me she had developed the ability to enter dreams. She at first practiced on animals. She learned bats dreamed in echos and tactile depths like braille letters. Jackcats dreamed in birdsong, and vibrations in their paws as they relived chasing their prey through the jungle. Abiji never taught me that ability—"No time!" she had said with regret—but this is what it must feel like. Netero's dreamy memories as he shares them are less movie reel like Pakunoda's memory bomb and more hazy close up of details and sensation.

Young Abiji or Netero's image of her moves on my lid's underside. The glittery crown of rose gold powder artfully painted on her eye sharpens the impact of her soft blue irises—Abiji wore makeup in her youth? Her voice speaks but all I can catch is a firm "—Isaac" and it stings like rope-burn. A discreet mole behind her left ear, seen only when she knotted her onyx hair, his bias tells me. As the memories fade, I'm left self-conscious as if I were intruding on something.

His eyes that droop dispassionately now read me. His Mien flows so like Abiji, like cool wind flipping the pages of my mind, coaxing me to lower my guard even more. Still, with a hard slam, the book shuts, catching his mental fingers. A single ripple in his flowing aesthetic I earned, but he stands solid on his stilted shoes.

"Ooooo," he intones, not in a condescending way, but rather that he's charmed and wished for no other reaction to his little game. If he is so inclined, he could surge through my resistance but we both know that's not the point.

"Curious." I dare. "What would you have done if I had passed out from your surge of Nen?"

"No pupil of Tevy Nha would pass out so easily. Maybe some other student of some other Gortese teacher, if any remain. But not Tevy Nha. If you had, it meant you have a death wish."

"From you?"

"From her," he says, his handlebar mustache curling in a coy smile.

I remember a quote from Abiji, you have to be a bit of a sadist to be a good martial arts teacher, and I shiver. Yeah, this man with the overlong robe definitely knew her. "You also could have asked if she had been my instructor."

He ho-hos at me, twirling the gray tail of his beard tight around his finger. Beans, with harsh downturned lines for brows, sighs again.

"Neh, Nanashi Freecs, is it?" His pupils drop to my abdomen, wrapped tightly in my obi, for a fraction of a second. "Still early, but let's say we go somewhere...less boring," says Netero. Before I can react, he adds as if inconsequential, "Somewhere where we're not being watched."

Watched? Does he mean the furtive glances from other Arena fighters or—

Beans happens to clear his throat at the same time, glove pressed to green lips and Netero continues, sandals clacking in giddiness.

"We can go to a Gortese restaurant," he says. "You can ask them to hand us the secret menu—ho ho!"

The Arena staff know him here for they shift aside, widening the girth between them and his billowing sleeves. He guides us through the staff only passageways and out some backdoor to some alley not frequented by arena tourists, where we slip to the immigrant shades of town.

The Gortese cuisine I grew up with and 'Restaurant Gortese' are different dialects of one language. On neighboring tables are platters of chicken, beef, curries that smell like they need more lemongrass but when passing through the welcome banner hanging in the door, the steamy aroma of turmeric and basil hugs me like a missed friend.

We sit in the back, in wooden chairs that creak under our weight. I deliberately choose the seat with a full view of the front door so I can watch who comes in and out. Despite Netero's warning, he never once peered behind, except to me. Part of me thinks he was just messing with me.

"Order for us," says Netero.

"Are you sure?"

"Anything will be fine."

Beans raises a finger in protest. "I'm allergic to almonds."

I order curry and ice-cold barley tea to be served first.

"Chicken or beef?" asks the waitress.

"Snail, please."

The waitress' penciled brow quirks. "You from the valley NorthEast of Zeoul, sis?" she says with a thick Hassian accent from the West of WG.

My shoulders bunch up and with a shy smile, it's enough to seem like a yes.

"I'm going to ask how you knew my mentor," I say. "But first, how did you find me?"

"Ho? Isn't it obvious?"

A soft sound from Beans, universally recognized, oh, here he goes again.

"Are you local to the area?"

"More like nine hours away by airship," says Beans, with whiskering at the outer corners of his eyes from his strained smile.

So that's what he meant by 'detour.' I have a guess but it doesn't feel safe to utter it aloud. Now I wish I had answered one of Ging's calls. He might have been trying to warn me about this encounter. "Maybe it's obvious to you, but I'm not sure."

"Ai, I suppose even with an introduction, without context it is meaningless," says Netero.

"Bear with me. I'm not about to trust every powerful Nen user that appears out of thin air," I say.

"As you shouldn't," says Netero. "Especially you."

Beans to the rescue. "Miss...Nanashi, what the chairman is trying to say is we know Ging Freecs. Amiable with him."

The first time all day he hasn't sweat nervously, nor does he strike me as someone who can lie easily.

"So my name," I say.

"See?" says Netero. "It was obvious. Don't misunderstand, I'm not teasing your caution."

But you clearly are, I don't say.

"Again," he continues. "It would be foolhardy of you to trust me, though I do appreciate your accompanying a poor old man to lunch."

Beans and I both sigh.

"So far away from your much stronger comrades."

I hide my stiffness while sipping tea. "Stronger than me probably doesn't exclude many."

An overlong white sleeve waves dismissively. "I'm not here to judge your choice of comrades. If I were interested in capturing them for some bounty—" a shark smile under his wiry white moustache— "I would have done so already."

I don't doubt that. "Why not though?" I ask for curiosity.

"Hmm? I don't mourn when bad men steal from other bad men. Though how long that stays true is a mystery." His bright tone subdues, long enough for me to note it, but then he goes, "Who would I be to steal all the fun from Blacklist Hunters?!"

I still have no context of Netero's shared memories, but I can imagine Abiji saying firmly Stop your blarney, Issac. Now I can sympathize with her. Admittedly, I struggle to understand people like him. People who have the power to wield change and yet do fuck all with it—that's unfair, Safra. That's a bold accusation for someone I've known for ten minutes.

Still, not to absolve the infamous Phantom Troupe, they are still those oddly dressed characters who in my short time with them, have done more city building than crime-book heists. Speaking of dreams, when I dream of rain, it is warm on my shoulders like when Feitan and Phinks dragged me the crack of dawn to double-check supplies had arrived in the city.

"Are bad men often philanthropists?" I ask. As soon as the words leave my mouth do I realize, like a cold splash to my cheeks. In Fisherman's den, when given a choice, I chose the Troupe and now I'm defending them.

Netero's fingers slide the moon-curve of his beard.

My phone vibrates on the table. "That's Ging now. If you want I can hand it over to you?"

"I won't steal that fun from you. How bad did he slight you for you to borrow his name so egregiously?"

I laugh and for a moment I'm the loudest patron in the restaurant. Maybe I had been a tad annoyed with him from Yorknew, (Oh how differently that night would have gone…) but his surname was the first I could think of at the time. It wasn't a genius ploy, just a dumb slip. But they don't need to know that.

"Is he actually calling?" says Beans with a heavy measure of disbelief, pointing a gloved finger to my phone. "By his own impetus?"

"He's furious," I say.

"He's bashful," says Netero. "But he's having fun."

The latter does sound like something someone who knows Ging would say.

"Naturally," says Beans. "Many people would have questions about you because of the surname."

Oh OH. "How embarrassed should I be—"

"Oh you look great on screen," says Netero. "It's embarrassing to him. Probably being hounded by others about what he did to anger the young lady so much."

"How well known is Ging in the Hunter community?" I ask.

A loud cough from Beans and he shakes his collar that's suddenly buttoned too tight.

"Ging is a philanthropist too," says Netero and somehow the evasion of answering is my answer. I remember Shalnark remarking on his 2 Star license that he must be pretty up there. This shouldn't be a surprise and yet… If these two think my borrowing Ging's name is petty revenge that means many who know Ging might think the same thing. And that's why my phone keeps ringing.

"You haven't been in the outside world for long," says Netero, no teasing in his voice. "Ging is a well-respected figure but a controversial one."

"But why? He's a Ruins Hunter. I know that."

Beans drums his fingers on the table.

"There are many opinionated Hunters," says Netero. "Who think he should have...curtailed his lifestyle after there were some paramount changes—additions—in his life."

That could mean anything. If Netero wanted to say it directly, he would have.

"I'll confess though, I knew Ging had reopened his research into East Gorteau so I had already been thinking about it when I so happened to be flipping through tv channels and a broadcast of your match came on. Nanashi Freecs said the announcer, capturing my attention before my thumb could change the channel. A Japanese name for a girl who did not look Japanese who, judging by her stern words to the referee, didn't speak it growing up. Then you used Nen."

Something that sounds good in your head but said aloud doesn't hold water. "Wouldn't another person say that's coincidence?"

"An uncurious person would, I wouldn't," says Netero. "Ging starts doing more East Gortese research with fresh zeal, then of all a sudden a non-Hunter Nen user, who looks Gortese, appears with an obliquely fake name."

"While virtually all Nen users have fled, Abiji Nha is not the only Nen user in East Gorteau. There are millions of people. So you stacked your chips on a 1 in 3 million chance."

"Nine hours," mutters Beans.

But Netero just smiles in the way old people smile at the young and naive. "The Nen community is a small one. If you're East Gortese of a certain generation, you were probably taught by Tevy. The chance to find a pupil of an old friend so I could ask about said old friend, when I had nothing better to do—"

Beans sighs.

"—was too good of an opportunity to pass up. And, wasn't I right in the end?"

He had Beans and me there. If he could win with odds like that he should play poker.

"So how is Tevy, the old girl?"

He looks so pleased and there's a stone in my stomach. "I...don't have good news of her whereabouts."

"Oh I bet!" says Netero.

I welcome the disquieted twist in Bean's mouth. Glad I'm not the only one.

"Let me be the judge of that," says Netero with a twinkle in his cinnamon eyes. "Show me."

Again, Mien is not mind reading, at least not when I use it. Show me, he says but he really means let him see because he'll be doing 99% of the work. He can pluck the information from my head if I drop my guard and he can immerse himself in the atmosphere Abiji and I shared. I press the memories to the forefront of my mind and shut my eyes.

"Very well." I open my gloved palms as an unguarded gesture.

"Can you believe it, Safra?"

"Believe what?"

"We are a country that constructed Mien, nen for mind playing, mind force, mind crushing, and mental resilience. But look at us now? So weak-willed and minded. We harbor after some fat spoiled brat and his nationalist whims. This is not the country of my ancestors and mentors."

"Abiji...why didn't you leave with the other Nen users? Even now. This camp. You could leave any time."

"My dear, someone had to keep Nen in East Gorteau. Someone had to be here to teach you Nen after yours was so traumatically awakened."

"I'm talking this prison camp."

"They know what I am, my dear pupil. One day they'll figure out what to do with me. On that day, they're going to take me away. So I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"When they come, you will do nothing. You will know nothing. And they will not find out what you are. If they do, they'll never let you go."

~.~.~.~

The prisoner dormitory was lit by moonlight. I pretended to be asleep, as everyone else did, even when the boots clabbered on the concrete floor.

I heard Abiji's annoyed groan and the loud kiss of her teeth. "Made up your mind, have you?"

The clicking lock of metal cuffs. "Go easy on an old woman," she says. A man's heavy scoff. Boots carry her out. The next morning her bed was empty with no explanation and when the guards barked roll-call, it was as if she never existed. Before nightfall, a new prisoner they brought, skittish, claimed her bed space. A new pea in the pod.

Little did I know then, that mere days later I would defect.

My regret hangs more pungent than the curry spices from the kitchen and I can't smell anything else.

When my vision clears, Netero is twirling the gray tip of his beard.

"Hmm, don't worry!" he says, his voice high like a jingling tower bell. "She's not dead!"

I gasp and if eyes could speak, Bean's panicked ones say I'm SO sorry!

"Aiyah, Tevy, how mean of you to let your pupil worry! Even I think that's too cruel to do to your students."

"How could you possibly know—"

A dark wink I want to trust so badly. "We'll get to that."

A large platter of snail curry arrives via waiter in my line of sight on Netero and he oos and aws over the orange curry. For a second, the aroma hooks my nose, and my senses fly across the sea to the sickle-shaped Mitene Union.

Netero's overlong sleeves—everything about him is overlong—rise up and he joins his palms under his bowed head. Droopy eyes shut for a heartbeat.

A prayer?

Soon he's reaching for a pair of chopsticks and I serve him and Beans (I'm the youngest at this table, right?) a heaping of curry with rice.

Beans is pinching his sticks at a shell, suspicious of it as if it would sprout a gelatinous form and slither away. "How...am I supposed to eat this?" he says.

"Carefully," says Netero. "The bird's eye chilies pack a nasty burn."

"I mean decorum," says Beans.

"The meat is already plucked out," I say. "The shell is just for decoration or sucking out the juices."

Netero slurps a shell without heed, I almost wince.

"I suppose if I'm going to explain how I know she's OK, I'll have to trace back to how I know your mentor in the first place. I don't mean to be a tease," he says, the tease in his voice betraying him. "Before the Gortese cultural revolution, a key select of us were dedicated to the martial arts with Nen as a discipline. Playing authority figures on an 'ever-evolving discipline'—Tevy's words. She pushed the envelope on Mien, could have had it confirmed as a Nen concept..." White overlong brows quirk thoughtfully. "If she had wanted."

I halve my rice. "Why not?"

"Tevy attributed it to her being a completionist. Those mutton will tear me to pieces unless I master it. You know how skeptical they are, Issac. Exhibitionists! They want to be moved to tears." He mimics her vocal edge as if he had a recording stored in his head. "We're a dojo, I'd tell her. Not a circus."

I can picture that exchange vividly.

"Tevy would maybe say she ran out of time, the revolution gaining steam in Gorteau by then. But between us," he says. "I suspect part of her liked keeping it Gortese. We were all selfish in our unique ways."

"So she is why you know Mien. Not 'some other Gortese teacher' red herring."

"Some. I know some," he says, though someone with a narrow understanding of Mien could not have performed what he had earlier... "That's Tevy. She couldn't explain or theorize without teaching. She liked having another test her findings. To show that her ability could be mimicked, and become as universal as Ten. Many a night was spent with her trying to contextualize the nebulous."

"So you were her guinea pig?"

His breath hitches in his throat with a laugh.

Even with food still on my plate, I scrape my stick at the bottom of the pot, hunting burnt snail crust, arguably the best bites in the whole dish. "Abiji Nha—" Me, who is wholly reverent to her, can't drop the Gortese honorific while speaking Japanese. Calling Nha or Tevy is too casual. "Said she had been living abroad for over a decade, but she came back to keep Nen in East Gorteau. Is nationalism a good enough reason to forego growing as a martial artist?"

A kind smile from Netero. "Oh, but she didn't. It was the next natural step. Though it was hard to see that at the time…"

I'm not sure I understand but he continues.

"We had reached the pinnacle of our physical limits," he says. "The limits of what tradition taught, the next step required nothing short of transcendence. Going back home and promising to never leave was her expression of gratitude and love."

For a moment, I process and listen to the chatter and clatter of utensils at neighboring tables.

"I struggled with envy at that point," says Netero, and Beans hesitates, stopping his outstretching arm. "What's the opposite of envy?"

The answer came to me only because he already said it. "Gratitude."

The way his eyes smile are windows into his humor and mischief. "To think I was so bored yesterday," he says.

"Is that why...she never left the camp?" Frustration I had bitten back all this time intones in my voice and I wring the napkin in my lap. "She could have waltzed out of there any time. Refused the dawn awakenings, the awful food, the TNT exposure that made her sick...Yet she stayed. Until they took her away."

Beans, again, eyes me sympathetically but Netero ho-hos. "How crabby of her, to make her pupil worry. If she could have escaped at any time do you really think she went with the guards because of force? She went willingly. Waited for them to make up their minds."

...relief fills me, as welcome and cold as the barley tea.

"So stubborn of her to not disclose details. Though she valued giving knowledge, she was wary of imparting too much. Whatever too much meant to her that given day.

"You think she's okay?"

"Would you like to know how I know she's definitely alive?"

I would eat out of this guy's hand just to hear it and he knows it. I nod.

"You know the Nen surrounding East Gorteau? I know she's alive because that Nen remains as strong as ever. Whoever is in charge, that puppet or puppet wranglers, respect the fact that if she goes, the iron curtain goes too."

Ging's words echo in my head: I'm asking you, why the best ship captains, who can cross from Yorubia to South Azia in the most treacherous storms, can't cross to East Gorteau on the clearest day? Why did my airship, fully maintained and cleared by multiple engineers, suddenly experience turbine failure when we crossed near East Gortese air space? The conditions were set by a Nen user or multiple.

By one.

I cover my mouth with my glove. That is Abiji? The Nen that has thwarted Ging, other Hunters and would-be smugglers is her Nen? Picturing Ging's immensely frustrated face, I'm...proud. The waiter arrives to refill our tea and besides the vague cracking of ice against ice-cold glasses, I can't register any of it, my mouth gaping so open Abiji would scold me if she were here. Close your mouth or a bird will lay a nest in it.

If her Nen is guarding the figurative door, (more like a dragon guarding a bell tower) then she must know who goes in and out. "Do you think then she knows I left?"

"I reckon she does. She took a risk teaching you Nen in that prison, did she not? In the same way you could hear her technique in mine, Tevy echoes in your Nen. If you greeted her other colleagues or pupils, they'd hear it too. In other words, she wanted you to leave and to be welcomed on the other side. Just a hunch though.

"Which brings me to my next talking point," Netero says. "I hate to spoil such a nice meal but you have a match to attend soon. Are you privy to the recent uptick in traffic in and out of Peijin?"

I shake my head. "Traffic?"

"Air travel. By increase, I mean a few airships."

"Maybe the Dear Leader is out of cognac." I stab a snail with too hard force.

"For that, they'd go into Zeoul. This time they're heading North."

"The International Gungi tournament? Should be the right time of year for it."

"Too early. And wrong city. The tournament is in...?" Netero holds a finger near his overlong eyebrow and temple, wishing for the answer to come to him.

"Mumbasa," says Beans.

"That's it!"

"And where are the East Gortese ships going?" I ask.

"Yorknew."

The logical side of me says there are a billion reasons they could go to Yorknew. Fifth Avenue shopping trips for the Dear Tyrant's daughter, Ruban cigars, UN meetings where they don't sign anything international agreements, and yet, my adrenaline rushes when I recall, even several hours by car in the widest expanse of Yorubia, Yorknew KFJ is the closest major airport to Meteor City. For a coincidence, it's too damn close for comfort.

When Fisherman said my real name aloud and after seeing Omokage's doll, I naturally assumed it was Omokage who told him my real name but...what if I had been wrong—

"I'm ready to welcome a frivolous reason for the travel," says Netero as if he can read the thoughts behind my eyes.

"But you suspect it's not frivolous?"

"It is merely...unusual. A few airships is nothing to remark upon but when smoke wafts out of a once dormant volcano, you pay attention."

"You traveled nine hours to tell a stranger this?" That sounded less snippy and more grateful in my head.

"Paying a token of gratitude to a friend. Gifted to her pupil. Who was imparted with knowledge because of her sacrifice. I asked if you were privy, and now you are."

I don't remember when Beans got up, but he stands at the edge of the table. He checks his wristwatch. "The bill has been paid. If we leave now, Miss Nanashi won't have to rush back for her next match."

"Since you know Ging, you know what is Hunter is," says Netero, guiding me through the arena lobby. "Beans checked. There is no Nanashi Freecs registered in West Gorteau, or anyone of your similar profile, so I understand your situation is...tentative. Your undocumented status is an inconvenience that could be abated if you were licensed."

I knew this was coming.

"Would Abiji Nha support my taking the Hunter exam?"

"In her youth? Absolutely not. But judging by the impression she made on your Nen, hoping you'd meet her comrades, many of whom are Hunters, I doubt she would sneer at the protection it would grant you. As we age we become less rebellious. Or do we?! I'm still not sure."

Beans sighs at Netero's side.

"Was she skeptical of Hunters? Or the institution? Did she ever consider seeking help from other Nen users?"

Netero shakes his head. "She was adamant. It had to be a Gortese counter-revolution. When I suggested outside help in fostering a coup, she...kissed her teeth—"

I groan so loud a pair of arena fighters peer back.

"I think I'm still deciding what to do," I say. "But I'll check the date of the next exam."

"Well, thank you for bearing an old man's amusement for the better part of an early afternoon," says Netero.

I'm tongue-tied, wondering how best to articulate my thanks and how, as Abiji Nha's companion, he had my respect.

"Hmmmm." Netero bends sideways at his waist, his tuft of white hair flopping over. "Hips too narrow."

...I don't know if I want reference of my hips out of his gnarled mouth.

Finger twirling his beard, he says. "Doesn't look to have ever been pregnant."

I stand stock-still. My cheeks inflame and Beans burns bright fuchsia, in contrast to his green complexion.

I remember two arena fighters yesterday with sobering clarity.

"She doesn't look like she has ever— You know?"

"She looks too young."

How one of them absentmindedly circled his hands near his abdomen, referring to my abdomen, as if he meant to say—

Realization ripples through my features unmasked, and for the second time that day, my mouth gapes. Ging, Ging, I picture scruffy Ging, he, him, that vagabond has a—

"Safra." Before departing on stilted sandals, Netero throws me a wink. "Send Ging my regards."

AN: Lol. Netero. Ratting out Ging like that. I like to think everyone who knows about Gon is curious about who his mother is. It's such a mystery. I don't think Togashi even knows at this point XD Netero had a lot to say. He got his own chapter, but he deserves no less.

THANK YOU to Bisque-ware, WormwoodSand, albany. sr, AwkwardBlackCat, RoseGirl99 (nice to see you again!), StandUpKeepMovingForward, and LinIsSleepy for reviewing the latest chapter! And silent readers, THANK YOU, I appreciate you too and extend my good wishes to you.

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