Coasting on the edge of consciousness, Ryozha was dimly aware of... presences, other voices who shared the space he was in.

"Thank you for the tea, sensei. How is he?"

"No change. A... troubling... child. I had to all but throw Gon out of here in order to get him to go for something to eat. Even Killua is acting visibly worried, although he'd rather gouge his own eyes out than admit it. The doctors say that with a shock like that, there's a risk that he may remain comatose for years."

"Although the one doctor did say that there's also a possibility that he could wake up any time."

"True... it would be just like him to wake up five seconds after we'd given up all hope. It sometimes seems the boy does these things simply to be contrary."

"Are you talking about trying to re-teach him Nen, sensei?"

"As you well know. Honestly, it's enough to drive me crazy. At times, he's casually pulling off things that I'm not even sure I could attempt, and at the same time, he can barely manage things that you could do in your first month with me. And YOU were a lousy student."

"Thank you, sensei. You are as blunt as ever. Did you ever call his family?"

"Yes, shortly after I called for an ambulance and a taxi. Old Tenryu said that he would inform the boy's parents, but that the boy 'would not appreciate our interfering with his hunt'. A strange family, but a strong one."

"Indeed..."

Consciousness faded again, and Ryozha floated in darkness. Images of rings, maps, and vast treasures danced across his mind's eye, guarded over by a monstrous, looming form wielding a strange weapon. He broke and ran, sprinting over the dreamscape as only he could, but turned when he heard laughter. The monstrous form was no more distant, but now, at it's feet, lay the broken bodies of Gon and Killua. They had not gone down easily- black ichor dripped from wounds all over the monstrous body, but they had gone down nonetheless.

Ryozha screamed through the nightmare, denying that it had ever happened, but the thing only laughed louder. He ran again, racing before the laughter, until something inside him snapped. A red film covered his vision as he turned, the laughter droned down into the subsonic, and the creature stopped as if frozen in amber. Already wounded, it didn't have a prayer against the berserk Ryozha, who tore it to supersonic ribbons.

When Dream-Ryozha came to himself, he was standing over the mangled remains of the creature. Gon and Killua were nowhere to be seen. He stood for a long time.

A chill settled over the dreamscape, bitter cold slicing through his bones as the creature faded to a skeleton, then crumbled to dust. The ring sprayed out a magnificent map before him, then faded, glinting mockingly, crumbling into dust the same way the creature had. As he stood, acres of gleaming treasure mounded itself around him, titanic mountains of gold, oceans of gems. They too faded, turning to ash and blowing away.

As he stood, locked in a nightmare that would not end, other presences intruded. Voices he didn't know skittered across his mind, like a convention of insects screaming.

"Vital signs are going crazy!"

"Administer 20ccs of... &#! Now his vitals are going the OTHER way!"

"His temperature is going up and down like a yo-yo! The heart monitor just EXPLODED..!"

Then a familiar voice slid into his mind, gently. "Shh... it's going to be okay, Ryozha. I'll MAKE it okay." Fiery orange Nen splashed across the dreamscape, and Ryozha let go, the nightmare fading.

Abruptly, he was somewhere else. Sitting up groggily, he glanced around. A cursory inspection told him he was in a hospital room, with three orderlies trying to drag a stubbornly resisting Gon out of the room, while an amused Bisuke looked on. He watched this scene a little blearily for a bit, until Gon happened to glance his direction, threw off all the hospital workers with a casual shrug and rushed over to give him a hug, nearly throttling him.

Once he had managed to disentangle Gon from his neck, Ryozha looked over at Bisuke, who he could have sworn had tears in her eyes. She turned to glare at the orderlies, and said "OUT." in a voice that brooked no argument. When she turned back to Ryozha, her eyes were clear, and she smiled. "Anybody ever tell you that you're so stubborn and wrong-headed you're even that way when you're UNCONSCIOUS?"

Ryozha frowned, his head clearing rapidly. He glanced around again, but his gear was nowhere in sight, and he wasn't wearing his watch. He thought quickly, then said "How long has it been?"

Bisuke's smile faded a bit, then returned, a little maliciously. "Nearly three weeks. If you don't get back to it soon, I'm going to find that treasure WELL ahead of you."

"Now THERE'S an incentive to get well." Ryozha commented wryly.

He turned to Gon, but before he could say anything, Gon said "No word from Ja... that guy yet, but Ping Lee said to give you this..." he dug in his pockets, then frowned, and dug deeper, then pulled off his pack, set it on the end of Ryozha's hospital bed, and rummaged around in it. "I know I had it in here SOMEwhere..." he said, turning his full attention to finding whatever it was he was hunting for.

After watching him for a minute or two, Ryozha turned his attention to Bisuke. "So where are the others? Are they all right?" Bisuke nodded.

"I sent Wing and Zushi back to their training- no sense disrupting Zushi's learning so much, especially since you are MY pupil now. Killua is also off training- I'm letting him and Gon watch you in shifts. If I hadn't thrown him out of here, they'd both be here... as it was, the only way I could keep them out was by letting one of them watch you at all times."

Ryozha looked at her, and then glanced out the door, not sure whether or not to look for a Killua-shaped dent in the wall there. He DID see a discoloration on the wall, but it might just have been his imagination.

He shrugged, then shook his head. "I don't think I'm ever going to figure Killua out..." he muttered.

Bisuke smiled softly, and commented "In his own way, he cares for his friends just as much as Gon does..." then she broke off and started to laugh when Ryozha yelped "That's my FOOT, Gon! You're at the BOTTOM of your BAG!"

Later that day, once Ryozha had checked out of the hospital (he dealt with his doctor's objections by ignoring them), they returned to the Battle Tower. Once Ryozha had settled in a bit (Gon had eventually found Ping Lee's gift- it was a more advanced version of Ryozha's digital camera, suitably imbued with Nen), Bisuke took him aside for an evaluation. After studying his aura for a moment or two, she slapped her forehead. Reaching under his bed, she pulled out the Zaoldyeck training weights. Ryozha sighed and put them on.

Stumbling a little, he commented "Bleah... apparently three weeks of bedrest wasn't all that helpful to my training."

Bisuke nodded. "It wasn't. Now show me your Ren again..."

After a few gruelling hours of Nen excercises (Killua and Gon had wandered in about half an hour into it, with the former hucking a chocolate bar at Ryozha's head- once Ryozha opened it, he found that it was his favourite kind), Bisuke stopped the three boys. She set Gon and Killua to doing... well, basically the Nen equivalent of arm wrestling, attempting to overcome each other's Ten by Nen alone.

Ryozha she took aside, then handed him his headphones and player. "I'm about to assign you your toughest bad-habit-breaker yet, Ryozha. I want you to switch between maintaining full speed awareness and normal speed while the music DOES THE OPPOSITE." Ryozha looked at her disbelievingly, then swallowed, taking the proferred piece of gear.

Five seconds later, he was sweating with the strain of holding his concentration against the music, every limb trembling. Bisuke was letting him do it without moving at first, but she warned him that within one week, he would have to do it while doing simple combat forms, and the second week he would be sparring with her.

After two days, Ryozha was a wreck. By the fourth day, he couldn't even think straight any more, but Bisuke was merciless, driving him to exhaustion and beyond. By the sixth day, things were a little easier, and he could almost hold a normal conversation while fighting the music. By the end of the week, he had tensed up again, nervous about trying to move while fighting the conditioned reflex.

In a way, he was right to be nervous- on the first day of the second week, he twitched and jerked spasmodically, nearly tearing his arms out of their sockets with nothing other than the forces warring within him. By the third week, he could move without risk of injury, but still wasn't very steady, the hair-fine focus needed to remain on one plane of awareness slowing his movements and his perceptions.

Bisuke didn't display even the slightest concern, driving him ever harder, landing devastating blows every time he made the slightest mistake. Finally, at the end of the third week, Bisuke came in and sat on the end of his bed while he was resting. "I've arranged a fight for you." she told him. "It's against the Hook."

Ryozha paused thoughtfully. "I... think I've heard of him, somewhere... probably here."

Bisuke nodded, then motioned Wing into the room. He came in holding a videotape.

"Oh... hi, Sempai. I haven't seen you in a while." Ryozha greeted him.

Wing nodded cordially to him, then put the videotape he had been carrying into the VCR. He pushed his glasses back up on his nose, and began to speak very seriously as the tape started to play.

"The 'Hook', as he is called, is a thug. Nothing more, nothing less. He likes causing pain, and is very good at it. He has won six matches at this level..." the screen showed a tiny, wiry man walking into the arena, then blurring forward to messily tear off one of his opponent's arms. "And every single one of his opponents have died in the arena itself." On the screen, the tiny man unwrapped a hook and chain from his arm, whipping it around at speeds the camera couldn't follow, until his opponent was hopelessly entangled in it.

It impacted mushily, embedding itself into the Hook's enemy's chest just below the heart. Then the Hook started tearing at the man, reducing him to hamburger, blow by crippling blow. Ryozha wanted to turn away, but held his gaze on the screen, holding his heaving stomach in place with nothing more than his will.

Five more matches followed, each one worse than the last. By the end of the sixth fight, the Hook's opponent was little more than a stain, and the referee was shielded behind a steel cage. After some more advice from Wing, Bisuke looked Ryozha up and down.

"You're afraid of him, aren't you?" she said.

"Who... wouldn't be?" Ryozha asked queasily, still trying to keep from vomiting.

Bisuke cocked her head and looked at him. "He's a straightforward reinforcement user... the only strange variable is that chain of his, and that's not even imbued with much Nen. Killua or Gon could probably take him without too much trouble. Even though he's stronger than you... well, let me put it this way. Are you going to lose to an opponent who is both slower and stupider than you?"

Bisuke paused for a moment, then added "You're going to be fighting the way you've been training for the last three weeks- your player will be set at normal speed. It will be up to you to control your speed and awareness." Seeing Ryozha's panicked look, she relented slightly. "However, you will be allowed to absorb as much kinetic energy as you like before the match, and to take in your staff."

The day of the fight drew near quickly, and Ryozha's preparations became frantic. Every moment he didn't spend training, he was absorbing vast quantities of kinetic energy from every source he could lay his hands on, to the point that fighters two rooms down from his were complaining that his aura was infringing on their rooms. Finally, the night of the battle arrived.

Ryozha walked into the ring in what felt like a parody of his usual strut. The appreciative roar of the crowd made him even more nervous, and he looked around, wondering where the Hook was. Then the crowd noise died down abruptly, replaced by a nervous hush.

A hush, that is, except for a distant chant of 'Hook! Hook! Hook!' from high in the stands. Ryozha glanced around as his enemy approached, finally tracing the chanting to a small, morbidly dressed group waving banners emblazoned with the word "Hook" and crude splatters that Ryozha could only assume were meant to be blood.

He shuddered slightly, wondering what kind of people would cheer for such a madman. -At least Hisoka has STYLE...- he thought to himself. -This guy gives off the same kind of murderous vibes that nutsoid clown did when I was on the Hunter exam, but... well, Hisoka had better control, I guess... or something. Or maybe not... he DID kill a judge that year and get kicked out... Sigh... this is sad. I'm trying to distract MYSELF. Bah.- He gave himself a mental shake and slipped his headphones on. He smirked to himself at what came up. -Switchfoot... "This is your life." Good music for this fight.-

The referee brought his hand down sharply, and Ryozha focussed, easily dodging the Hook's first demented rush. The little man came back twice, getting close once, then missing entirely. A look of mad calculation came into his eyes, and he flicked his hook out, loosening enough chain to cover the entire arena platform.

Ryozha gave him a mean grin. -Perfect... exactly according to plan.- he thought. Raising the level of his speed awareness, he watched as the hook slowly jerked through the air, speeding up and slowing down randomly as his control slipped. He concentrated grimly, managing to just barely snag the hook with his jointed staff and suck out its massive kinetic force.

Then, without waiting for the Hook's attempts to free it, he slammed kinetic energy through the chain, cracking it like a whip and hurling the little man screaming out of the arena. Unfortunately, he misjudged the power thanks to the constant distraction of needing to fight his own engrained instincts, and his staff was torn from his hands.

In the stands, Wing turned to Bisuke as they watched the Hook get thrown into one of the arena walls with stone-shattering force. "Are you sure this is wise, Sensei?" he asked her.

Bisuke looked at him for a long moment (below, the Hook fought to dig himself out of the rubble, scrabbling frantically to get back into the ring so he could maim his target), then said slowly, "Wise? No. I'm not sure it's wise." she paused (the Hook was nearly clear, smashing the chunks of rubble into gravel in his haste to get at Ryozha)

"I AM sure it's necessary, though. The boy has been dependant on that silly music trick of his for too long. A fight with an opponent this strong, who wants nothing more than to kill him, will either burn the need out of him, or make it so that he can't change speeds without it for the rest of his life." (The Hook was free, lunging towards the arena in little hops while throwing away the remnants of his broken chain).

In the arena, Ryozha was thinking hard, trying to come up with a new strategy while the world wobbled and spun around him. He cursed mentally -I'm getting dizzy from the constant changes of speed... I have to hold on!- Abruptly, the Hook was in front of him, grabbing his arm. Ryozha shook him off, blasting his hand loose with a pulse of kinetic power. The Hook gibbered and darted back, then lunged in. Ryozha hurled him away again with another blast of kinetic power, then looked down at himself.

-Not good...- he thought giddily, -I've already burned off more than half my kinetic reserves through fighting off this guy's strength and through wasting it because I can't control it properly 'cos of having to focus so hard on maintaining speed awareness... and I don't think I'm able to hold as much as usual still- blowing up like that messed me up pretty bad. Maybe if I...- He lunged, blurring across the arena, smashing into the Hook like a runaway train, slamming him with hundreds of tons of kinetic force.

The little killer simply took it, staggering back a couple of steps, then coming back at Ryozha again. Ryozha jinked and dodged, managing to get a hit in here and there, but all the time, the world swam in and out of focus as his poor control slipped further and further.

Then the Hook landed a stunning blow on Ryozha's face, and if he hadn't seen it coming just in time to get Ken up to defend, it would have torn his head right off his shoulders. As it was, Ryozha went bouncing out of the arena, skidding until he fetched up against the wall. The Hook moved to follow him, and Ryozha lay there in pain, too dizzy to move. The world swam in front of his eyes, speeding up and slowing down sickeningly, and he heard Bisuke's voice.

-Great...- he thought, his head spinning, -if my life is gonna flash in front of my eyes, I'd rather have the bits WITHOUT the one who's getting me killed...- He heard Bisuke's voice again, then laughter. He muzzily scanned the stands, and saw her up there, talking to Wing. -Wonder what I'm remembering, then?- he thought. He managed to focus a little, and heard not battle tactics, or Nen advice, like he expected, but Bisuke's mocking voice. "Are you going to lose to someone who's both slower and stupider than you?"

-#&! NO!- he snapped to himself mentally. He grabbed his focus and clamped down on it like a steel vise. "Grandpa always said I was as stubborn as a sack of rocks... may as well put it to use..." he mumbled to himself. The music that was trying to drag him back to normal speed became a minor irritation, then droned down into subsonic nothingness. The world froze, the Hook drifting towards him as though fighting through an ocean of peanutbutter. He stood, then frowned. -I don't think I like this guy.- he thought. -It's not just that he's trying to kill me... I think I resent him taking so much pleasure in it.-

In the stands, Bisuke breathed a sigh of relief. "He's got it." she said.

Wing looked at her oddly. "How can you tell? He's just been laying there for the last few seconds."

"I KNOW my students." Bisuke said flatly. Wing shrugged.

"Your literally kill-or-cure methods to fix bad habits make me nervous, Sensei... I'm just glad you never had to use any of them on me."

Bisuke smiled sweetly. "You may have been a lousy student, Wing, but you were MY student. What possible bad habits could you have picked up?"

From behind her, Killua, with a grin audible in his voice, said "Violence, short temper, mean-spiritedness, money-hunger, cruelty to children, impatience..." and was cut off by Bisuke belting him straight up into the air.

Ryozha leapt, going from propped against the wall to flying kick without much of anything in the way of intervening motion. The Hook went flying back, then was intercepted by Ryozha, who kicked him high into the air, then leapt and drove him back into the ground.

The little murderer found himself ricocheting around the arena like a pinball, battered back in some random direction by Ryozha at every turn. Finally, Ryozha knocked him into the air again and blasted him into the ground with such force that he shattered the flagstones, then followed that with a torrent of friction flame, creating a short lived firestorm that scoured the flagstones clean and left the Hook as a charred, barely alive lump of meat.

The Hook twitched feebly once or twice, crawling towards where Ryozha landed, then collapsed as Ryozha jerked back in revulsion. -He's STILL trying to get at me..!- Ryozha thought in shock -That's not willpower... it was just mindless bloodlust the whole time!-

He slowed down just in time to hear the judge call "KO! Ryozha wins!" He raised one hand, then vanished, reappeared where his staff had landed, picked it up, then, focussing briefly, jogged (at a more normal pace) jauntily off into the locker room, whistling along with the chorus of Switchfoot's "Meant to Live".

In the dressing room, he collapsed, sweating and shaking as if he had a fever. A migraine spiked through his head as Gon and Killua came in to congratulate him. Bisuke was waiting for him in his room as Gon and Killua carried him in between them. He flopped bonelessly into bed, feeling consciousness slip away. The last thing he heard was Bisuke's voice saying "You did well, Ryozha. Now rest."

When he awoke, he could sense another presence in the room. Ryozha's eyes snapped open, and he sat up. "Weird..." he mumbled, "I feel completely rested."

He glanced around, and found that Bisuke was still there. "How long was I out?" he asked her.

"Not long," she told him, "thanks mostly to my Nen ability, you were only unconscious for about nine hours."

Ryozha winced. "Nine..? Oh well. Thanks for the Nen massage, I guess."

Bisuke arched an eyebrow. "If it wasn't for my Lovely Masseuse ability, you would probably have been out for another week or two."

"Oh."

Biskuke looked at him for a second as he hopped out of bed. "I want you to try something." she told him. "Switch between speed-modes as smoothly as you can."

Ryozha half-shrugged and slid between normal speed and full speed awareness, nearly dropping out of it from shock when he realized how smoothly and easily it was coming. After holding it perfectly for a good minute (nearly ten subjective hours) longer than his best time, he slid out of it, smoothly levelling off at normal speed.

He stared at Bisuke. "What did you DO to me while I was out?" he asked.

Bisuke ignored the question, studying him for a long moment, before saying "So... you're able to switch in and out with no problems, and to hold it? Good... this is even better than I'd hoped." she paused. "Of course, you're still pretty keyed up from the fight. It almost definitely won't be this easy when you try it under normal circumstances." She blinked. "What did I do to you? Nothing except put you in a situation where you were forced to break your dependence on that silly music trick."

She smiled at him, and he looked at her skeptically. -Wonder what she's hiding..?- he thought, then dismissed it as unimportant. He rummaged under his bed, then found his jointed staff from where it had gotten kicked. He flipped it through a couple of quick rotations, then set it down.

"Y'know," he said, half to himself, "I THOUGHT I noticed something odd in that last fight. My staff feels ridiculously light now."

Bisuke nodded. "That's what proper training will do for you," she said, while thinking -I wonder when he'll notice that I put the weights back on him once I finished with the massage?.-

"Hrm..." Ryozha mused. "Gonna have to put a call through to Ping Lee for a new staff, right after I ask Killua what those yo-yos of his are made of. He's always bragging about how super-hard and heavy they are."

He glanced up when he felt Bisuke's eyes on him, and wondered again what she was hiding. Their eyes met, and after a moment, she said "I want you to take it easy for today... if that fight had lasted even five seconds longer, you would have died from burning up all your Nen. You need to give your body time to heal."

"Fine with me," Ryozha said, "I've got a few things to do, so today's a good day to take care of them. Are Gon and Killua still around?"

She nodded. "They went to watch Zushi's fight- it should be ending soon. I think it was on the 141st floor..." she paused. "Something's been bothering me since your fight," she said, "how do you do your flame attacks? It doesn't look like Transformation, which is what it would normally be..." He brought his hands up, and she said quickly "Don't show me, just tell me. Remember what I said about conserving your Nen today."

Ryozha blinked and said "Oops... right. Uhm... well, basically, I just grab a bit of air and spin it around my hand at about fifteen hundred miles an hour. Friction heats it up superhot, and when I release it, it looks like I'm throwing fireballs or creating a sheet of flame. It's not nearly as powerful as it would be if I were using Transformation, but I use it mostly for distractions or making people think I'm weaker and of a different Nen type than I really am."

"Interesting..." was all she said.

He waved to her, and started to wander down the hall towards the elevator. She called him back briefly, saying "Before I forget- Gon wanted me to tell you that the Hook didn't die. He wasn't hurt nearly as badly as he looked."

Ryozha blinked, surprised. "I know." he said, "I wanted to make him feel pain, not kill him. I never attacked any of his vital points except at the end, to knock him out." He shrugged. "I hated him too much to kill him." He headed down the hall again, ignoring Bisuke's thoughtful look.

Bisuke stood outside his door and watched him go. -I wonder if I should tell him about the other aspect of his 'final' Hatsu that Wing and I noticed on the videotape Wing's Nen-camera using friend made...- She shuddered slightly. -I have a hard time admitting it, even to myself, but this boy scares me sometimes. When he managed to lock into full-speed mode... The Hook didn't have a chance. Even if he'd been fast enough to block Ryozha's strikes or counterattack...- the image of Ryozha, slowed to visibility by the Nen-powered videotape, racing and leaping around the ring to batter his horrible opponent senseless played across her mind's eye again.

At first, she'd thought that his control was simply still poor as his aura flickered and rippled, dancing like sheet lightning as it roared around his slim body. Then she started watching it in relation to the Hook's movements, and had gasped audibly, badly startling Wing.

-I've never seen anything quite like it before, and I probably never will again.- she thought. -His aura was reacting instinctively to the Hook's every move, his every shift of Aura. Combined with Ryozha's speed, it would be impossible for anyone who wasn't vastly more powerful than him to penetrate his defenses. Of course, it will probably be ten years before he realizes he can do it, and twenty before he's able to control it, but still...-

She leaned against the wall and smiled faintly. -If I were a greedy woman, she thought, I'd be thrilled to have such a large part in teaching what are likely to become the greatest Hunters of their generation. Ryozha doesn't exactly have the same incredible potential power levels as Gon and Killua, but he uses the Nen he DOES have well; he's creative, clever, has a strong will and thinks quickly. Of course, he's also lazy, smart-alecky, scatterbrained and as stubborn as a sack of rocks, but oh well.- She glared at a passing fighter who was giving her a funny look, making him twitch. Then her smile returned, broadening into a greedy grin. -Who am I kidding... she thought to herself. I AM a greedy woman, and I'm thrilled to be teaching these three. Of course, I'll never tell THEM that... hee hee hee...- Chuckling to herself, she ambled off down the corridor.

The next couple of weeks passed quickly, settling into an amiable routine. Bisuke's gruelling training continued apace- Gon could now perform his Rock-Paper-Scissors attacks consistently, although he still wasn't satisfied with the power of the Paper aspect, and Killua had figured out how to use physics to fire lightning bolts (he just jumped into the air while holding a powerful charge, and it took the shortest route to the ground, crisping the tallest thing around).

Ryozha's next fight was against another powerful Reinforcement user, who handed him his first loss, and in one hit, no less- Ryozha tried opening with a fast jump kick, only to have his ankle grabbed and then get smashed headfirst onto the flagstones of the arena floor (the doctor had said that he was lucky he had such a thick skull, much to Gon, Killua and Bisuke's amusement, or he would have ended up with a cracked head), but the fight after that, his anik alloy-cored jointed staff had arrived from Ping Lee, and he used his heavy, Nen-imbued weapon to dominate his luckless opponent, smashing him from a dozen angles at once. After the fight, a slightly shocked Ryozha vowed to work on his control- he had come uncomfortably close to killing his foe by accident.

Ryozha's next fight was sold out less than three hours after it was announced, at fifty thousand Jenis a ticket. The wildly popular Vladimir had made it to the 200th floor, and wanted a rematch. Ryozha scrambled out of bed well after noon on the day of the match- he, Gon and Killua had been up late the night before working out strategies to counter Vladimir's powerful shields and his terrible hammers.

Checking the time, he threw on his clothes and sprinted for the Celestial Tower's cafeteria. After a hasty brunch, he headed for the arena. He jogged in, ignoring the roar of the crowd. He had opted to leave his new staff behind for this fight, fairly certain it wouldn't be of much help. Vladimir appeared on the far side of the arena, his shield already up. The crowd roared louder. Ryozha, briefly distracted, glanced at the oddsmaker's board- apparently, the consensus of who would win was almost exactly split down the middle.

Vladimir and Ryozha squared off in the center of the arena. The referee brought his arm down, and Ryozha... stood there. Vladimir, his hammers already whirling out to intercept Ryozha, was thrown off balance. Ryozha sped in, bringing a Kou-assisted kick slamming into Vladimir's elbow. It connected solidly. Vladimir had misjudged again, protecting his body and head first with his shield. Unfortunately for Ryozha, Vladimir's Ken had provided enough protection that the elbow was unbroken.

-Like we thought,- Ryozha said to himself, -his Ken and his shield are pretty much independent of one another. Bah. Oh well... not like it was unexpected.- He dodged the next hammer strike- apparently Vladimir had decided to forego his 'nest of hammers' assault in favour of the faster double hammer. Then Vladimir did something unexpected- when Ryozha hopped over his next hammer strike, intending to counterattack, Vladimir punched him solidly in the face with his free hand.

Ryozha flipped over backwards, rubbing his nose, but landed cleanly. "Clean hit! One point!" the judge called. Before he had even finished calling, Ryozha was moving. The flagstone where he had been standing shattered. -Okay... that was a little unexpected. Apparently he can turn one hammer off while using the other.- He shifted into full speed awareness, spinning around Vladimir to study him from all angles. Then, with a wicked grin, he leapt forwards, doing a handspring and throwing a kinetic pulse into the ground at Vladimir's feet, causing the arena floor to ripple violently.

Vladimir was thrown off his feet and rolled helplessly for a second, like a hamster in a ball, before he flicked his shield off so he could stand up. Ryozha, who had been watching carefully, leapt in in an eyeblink, driving Vladimir's head into the ground with a powerful kick. Then he was thrown back as Vladimir's nest of hammers sprang into being, battering him helplessly around.

Ryozha scrambled to his feet, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. -Ow...- was his only coherent thought before he had to dodge again, hammers smashing in from all angles. Vladimir was on the move, lunging towards Ryozha as his hammers came to bear. Ryozha frowned grimly. -Here's hoping your idea works, Gon, or this match is over for me, getting in this close to this guy...- he thought, then grabbed at the tendril connecting one of the hammers to Vladimir. There was a fat spark of conflicting auras, then the hammer simply disappeared. Vladimir made a strange noise, then came in harder, smashing the arena floor to rubble as he tried to crush his nimbler tormentor.

Ryozha danced among the hammers, pinching them out of existence when he got the chance, hair-fine focus held carefully. Then Vladimir jumped at him, obviously preparing for a kick. Ryozha watched with interest as Vladimir's shield closed slowly over the hole that had been allowing him to walk.

-Y'know, I bet I'd fit through that...- he thought, before moving abruptly. The next thing Vladimir knew, Ryozha was inside his shield. Ryozha elbowed him solidly in the head, then released a pulse of kinetic power that slammed the shield bubble, with both of them inside it, to the ground. -Wild... didn't feel a thing when this bubble hit the ground... no wonder this guy didn't have much trouble with me whaling on the shield...- he thought fleetingly. Then he started to run, accelerating the bubble like a hamsterball... with the hamster on amphetamines.

Ryozha raced inside the bubble, dodging the flailing, screaming Vladimir as he sped around the arena. -This is fun...- he thought, -apparently, Vladimir's bubble is connected to him- roll the bubble, and he rolls inside it.- Concentrating a bit, he spun the bubble until Vladimir was spinning lengthwise in it like some kind of strange axle. -Okay, Vlad baby... let's see how you like this one...- he thought.

Lengthening his stride, he blasted around the arena at impossible speeds, Vladimir spinning above him and turning a sickly shade of green. Finally, after a particularly tight banking corner (Ryozha had been running more on the walls than the floor for the last while), Vladimir regained enough control to use two of his hammers as a brake, ejecting a startled Ryozha through a hole in the shield bubble.

Ryozha made a recovery in mid-flight, to land smoothly and race back towards where Vladimir was retching weakly in the corner. He stood on the corner of the arena's raised pad, watching as Vladimir turned back towards him, shaky and weak, but with a dangerous light in his eyes.

Ryozha tensed, Gyo at the ready, waiting for the onslaught of hammers. Instead, Vladimir smashed a short arc through the floor, spraying Ryozha with chunks of rubble. Blinded, Ryozha backpedalled, his sixth sense straining for the slightest sense of motion as he frantically scrubbed at his eyes. A faint shift in air pressure warned him, and he darted sideways, catching a glancing blow that sent him sprawling.

He rolled sideways, nearly being pulped when Vladimir anticipated the move and sent his hammers smashing down. He flipped to his feet, blinking dust and grit from his blurry eyes, then frowned. Vladimir's hammers were coming from his hands, as usual, but there were far more than two. As Ryozha watched, five hammers arced off Vladimir's right hand, forming a wall of crushing death as they whistled across the arena, scouring it clean.

Ryozha was halfway to the ceiling when the hammers passed his position. Swallowing his momentum, he stopped abruptly, and Vladimir's next strike passed harmlessly overhead. He lunged back downwards, landing in the exact centre of the arena with a thunderous crash as he slammed a pulse of kinetic energy into it, making it heave like the deck of a storm-tossed ship.

Vladimir flipped upright in midair, but he was already too late. His hammers were forming a terrible wall in front of him, but Ryozha was behind, bringing a lightning-fast side kick to his neck, knocking him flying to land in a cloud of powdered concrete as his flailing hammers tore up the arena floor. Already unsteady, the kick to his nerve centre unbalanced Vladimir completely, and he lay, twitching feebly in a mound of rubble as his hammers continued to chew at the floor, until he mercifully passed out and his Hatsu faded.

Ryozha stood in the middle of the arena, the roar of the crowd gradually impinging on his consciousness. His only thought was -Okay... that was a lot easier than last time...- He jogged out, ignoring the ravings of the commentator. Gon and Killua were waiting for him in the dressing room, and he high-fived both of them. "Wow... thanks guys. Your plans worked." he told them. Gon pumped his fist in the air and yelled "Yeah!" and Killua just smiled.

One week (and two fights- one win by KO for Ryozha, and one win by points) later, word finally came from Jack Fettham. It consisted of one phrase and the name of a city in the Near East. The phrase was "If you are Hunters, you can find me."