Quite some time had passed since I returned to the Zoldyck estate.
What I realized after coming back was that the Zoldyck Family without Illumi was peaceful as hell.
I’d only returned before that bastard did, yet there was nothing making me constantly sweat bullets.
If possible, I wanted Illumi to live the wandering life of a proper assassin, going out on assignments every single day.
It’s not like he has anything to do at home anyway.
Killua, whom he loves to death, would be going on all kinds of dangerously insane adventures with Gon from now on, so he ought to follow them around.
And if possible, take Hisoka along as a package deal.
"Now this is pretty damn good. Where did you buy it?"
Right now, I was in a room with old man Zeno, digging into the yokan jelly I had bought.
Maybe because he was a grandfather, but despite having perfectly sturdy teeth, he fucking loved yokan.
Last time, when I got him some red-ginseng-flavored candy, he said he hated it—but later, I saw whole boxes of it in his room.
He was such an old man.
"I bought it somewhere you couldn’t get to even if I told you. If you’re curious, why not search the entire continent?"
I’m not going back to buy more. It was fucking far.
Find it yourself, old man.
"Hm. Insolent brat. I’d like to flick you on the head... but your few remaining hairs have done nothing wrong, so I’ll let you off. Heh heh heh."
Fuck.
So even past sixty, the old man still had a full head of hair.
Must be nice to inherit such great genes.
In the original, it wasn’t as though Gotoh had severe hair loss. He showed a few signs of a receding hairline, but after possessing his body, I took care of it and prevented it well.
The problem was stress-induced hair loss.
Fuck.
After running into that Illumi bastard and the clown bastard back-to-back this time, my hair had gotten a little thinner.
"That is all thanks to your lovely grandson, after all."
-Aren’t you sorry it’s falling out because of your grandson?
"Illumi does have lovely hair. Shall I tell him to donate some of it to you?"
-Yep. Not sorry at all.
"Rather than that, how about letting my hair heal naturally? Keeping up with my actual duties is hard enough as it is."
-Keep that bastard away from me. I’m your personal attendant, aren’t I?
"My grandson says he wants to spend time with his uncle, so I should let him. An old man like me would lose face if I refused him even that. I saw you two together before, and you looked quite good together. Why not?"
-Nope. It’s hilarious when my grandson sticks to you. Heh heh.
Fuck.
He was fucking good at teabagging.
I wanted to call him a denture-clacking geezer, but his teeth were sturdier than mine, so it wouldn’t land.
All the Zoldycks’ shitty personalities must have originated with this old man.
This family’s DNA seemed to be defective in every way except hair and assassination techniques.
He hadn’t been like this at the beginning of my possession, but at some point, this old man had started teasing the fuck out of me.
"Why aren’t you saying anything? Don’t tell me you’re sulking? Honestly. I can’t tell who the child is here."
Motherfucker.
Try imagining old man Zeno getting chased around by Netero back when he was weak.
Then again...
Would this old man think he could take even that?
Come to think of it, he probably couldn’t understand because he had never had a weak phase.
What a fucking asshole.
It pissed me off, but I’d lose if I picked a fight, so I held back.
I should just steal more yokan.
"...Don’t eat too much of it."
"I’m the one who bought it."
"You said you bought it for me to eat."
"I never said how many pieces I bought for you to eat."
I was going to eat it all.
It might look a little petty to act like this over food, but it couldn’t be helped.
Once this was gone, there would be fucking poisonous meals waiting for me three times a day again.
It was nice that at least the food was normal while I was away. Fuck.
In the end, you had to eat the delicious stuff while it was there.
I had originally planned to split it fifty-fifty with old man Zeno, but since he’d teabagged me, I’d eat some extra as compensation for emotional damages.
"Fine. Eat it all."
Oh? What was this about?
I’d been tensed up, expecting him to smack me on the head at any moment.
Had his appetite decreased now that he was another year older?
This wasn’t normally how he acted.
Wasn’t the usual pattern that he’d smack me on the head, I’d dodge it, and then he’d eat all the food in the meantime?
"I didn’t know you liked yokan so much. From now on, I’ll tell the kitchen to prepare nothing but yokan for your meals."
?
Sir.
Grandpa.
What the hell does that mean?
You mean they’d turn that fucking poison—which tastes awful whether it’s stir-fried, deep-fried, steamed, grilled, or boiled—into yokan and feed it to me?
After everything I’d been through, they should be feeding me sweet, sweet chestnut yokan until I couldn’t eat another bite.
Does this fucking household have nothing but poison for ingredients?
I quietly put the yokan in my hand back where it belonged.
"Hm? You’re not eating any more? I thought you liked yokan. Here. Eat more. I said eat it, didn’t I?"
"Come to think of it, I’m allergic to yokan."
"Then you should eat more. That’s how you build up resistance. I’ll make sure to speak to the kitchen, so make sure you eat it."
"...I’m sorry."
Please don’t ruin my life just because I stole some snacks.
I was wrong.
Perhaps my appearance was amusing to him, because old man Zeno cackled for quite a while.
Fuck.
This fucking household.
I take back what I said earlier.
Whether Illumi was here or not, there was no peace as long as I remained in the Zoldyck estate.
**
I take back taking that back.
That fucking piece-of-shit Illumi needed to disappear from this house.
Togashi probably wrote it down in the setting notes too: Hunter x Hunter ends when Illumi dies and peace returns to the world.
"Hey, Gotoh. Hm? Who hunted you down? Did you let your guard down?"
That piece-of-shit Illumi had been pulling this crap for an hour since coming back.
Get lost, you bastard.
It seemed the examiner hadn’t told him that I’d withdrawn midway through.
Fucking great.
If he brought Killua back with him, he should be sticking to Killua instead.
"...I withdrew because you were my target, Master Illumi."
This bastard must have killed every examinee who had targeted him, right?
Then he wouldn’t know who had actually been after him.
So this was the right answer.
For the record, old man Zeno was deliberately following us around, watching me get bullied.
Fuck, aren’t you going to save me, old man?
I even ordered you more yokan.
"Ahh~. Was that it? You should have said so."
How was I supposed to say that you’re fucking awful?
"If you’d told me, I would have given you my number tag. Catching three more people is easy. Gotoh, you’re stupid."
I don’t want to hear that from you, you walnut-pastry-brained bastard.
Old man, quit laughing and do something.
Where the hell did you even get popcorn?
"Indeed. But I could not bring myself to commit the disloyal act of hunting the person I serve, so I had no choice but to withdraw."
Anyway, if you gave me your tag, everyone would assume I had hunted you down, wouldn’t they?
I worded it to roughly convey that meaning.
"Hmm."
Fuck, say something.
No, don’t say anything.
Just get lost. You’re making my insides twist.
"I see. So that’s it. I understand."
No. You don’t understand.
You don’t understand in the slightest that your very existence is shaving years off my life.
So get lost.
Go far away—preferably to the Dark Continent—and die.
...Just don’t go there and have a second awakening that turns you into even more of a monster. I felt like this bastard actually might.
"If you have nothing further to say, then—hm?"
What was this? Looking at him now, one of his arms was swollen.
Was it broken?
Served him right. Whoever did it, nice.
But there shouldn’t have been anyone at the exam site capable of hurting this bastard.
Did he fight Hisoka or something?
"Oh, this? No. 405, the one with spiky hair, did it. He showed some promise. Though it was my fault for letting my guard down because I assumed he was an ordinary person without any abilities."
Wow. Gon Meat Monster was fucking insane.
He broke Illumi’s arm at this point in time?
I could only ask how the hell he had done it. Did they face each other in the final exam?
In my memory, the Hunter Exam ended with Illumi giving Killua PTSD. I didn’t remember the exact matchups.
But if Illumi got injured, wasn’t Gon fucked?
When this bastard fought, he didn’t go easy on anyone but family.
"Is No. 405 dead?"
He couldn’t be dead. If he was, this world was fucked.
Illumi tilted his head.
Answer me, you fucking idiot.
I got confused every time he made that kind of gesture.
I couldn’t tell whether that tilt meant, ‘Of course he’s dead, why are you asking?’ or ‘Why would I kill him?’
Fucking bastard.
"He injured Master Illumi. Surely we cannot leave him alive."
I’d test the waters first since he was being such an asshole.
With this approach, I could ask whether he was alive or dead, right?
Say something already.
But this bastard refused to say a word to the very end.
"Ho ho ho! What an excellent mindset. Just as expected of Gotoh."
Illumi’s silence dragged on, and then a woman wearing cybernetic-looking glasses like something a cyclops would wear appeared.
What the hell?
Fuck. Why was Kikyo Zoldyck here?
Kalluto was here too.
Fuck, they had set up an entire table, and the three of them, including Zeno, were drinking tea.
When the hell had they brought that over?
More importantly, why were they doing this here?
I was fucking bewildered.
"Madam, Master Kalluto."
I swiftly bowed my head in greeting to them both. They were Zoldycks too—the masters of the family I served.
Old man Zeno? I had already greeted him earlier when he started following us around.
Kikyo Zoldyck was the wife of Silva Zoldyck, the head of this family, and Kalluto was the youngest son of the household.
Piss either of them off, and I’d die.
Old man Zeno became somewhat more lenient when we were alone, but that woman showed no mercy.
If anything, in my personal experience, she was the most seriously psychotic person in the entire family.
Fuck. Killua stabbed her and ran away, and she liked it?
She was truly a crazy bitch who suited this family perfectly.
Come to think of it, she acted a lot like Illumi. Was that hereditary too?
Scholars who studied eugenics, you might have been right.
Their genes should have been erased...
"Illumi seems moved as well. But if you keep standing there blankly, people may misunderstand, you know? Come here. Let’s have a cup of tea and talk together."
"Mother... okay."
"Gotoh? Come sit down."
That tea has poison in it, you fucking bitch.
No, more importantly, was Gon actually dead?
**
Trriing...
[Yes. Zoldyck estate butler office.]
"I’m Gon, Killua’s friend. Is Killua there?"
[Master Killua has no such thing as friends.]
Click.
The call was disconnected.
But Gon immediately called again.
[Yes. Zoldyck estate butler offi—]
"How do you know that?! Quit talking shit and put Killua on!"
His voice abruptly rose. Leorio and Kurapika were startled by Gon’s agitated state.
They had felt it during the final exam as well, but when Gon got angry, it was like he became a different person.
[...Even if Master Killua has a friend named Gon, there is no proof that you are that Gon. Altering one’s voice is easy.]
They really were frustrating people. Still, Gon could not refute the possibility that it was an altered voice.
"Ughhh! Then put Gotoh on, at least! That man will know! He’ll know I’m really Gon!"
Instead, Gon sought the one Zoldyck Family butler with whom they had a connection.
[Master Gotoh would say the same thing. Assassination is the Zoldycks’ livelihood. Naturally, they have many enemies. We butlers are tasked with protecting this household. Goodbye.]
The call was disconnected.
"I see. As expected. There has never been a precedent for allowing visitors inside..."
Zebro, the gatekeeper and groundskeeper at the front gate of the Zoldyck estate, spoke regretfully.
The boy looked innocent, and the young men who had come with him seemed upstanding too, so he wanted to help them.
"Even so, I’m definitely going in."
What remarkable resolve.
Zebro liked this boy. So he made an offer he had never made to anyone in his entire life.
"Then, would you like to undergo special training with me?"
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