Bait. That’s all they were ever meant to be — a worm on a hook dangling in the desert heat.

Chrollo, the calm and unreadable leader of the Phantom Troupe, had taken a rare interest in a certain mysterious fighter. They had defeated one of the Troupe’s strongest members with unsettling ease before disappearing without a trace. Their strength, precision, and composure fascinated Chrollo. He needed answers. He needed them.

But no matter how far the Troupe searched, every lead dissolved into nothing.

Then Pakunoda discovered something far more useful: a sibling. Someone tied to the fighter by memories and emotion, someone easier to track and easier to take.

By nightfall, the sibling was already in the Troupe’s hands.

They awoke suspended from ropes in the Troupe’s Gordeau Desert hideout, surrounded by shifting torchlight and the quiet presence of killers who viewed them as nothing more than a tool. The dry air scraped their lungs, the sand outside hissing against stone walls.

The Troupe observed them with varying degrees of interest and irritation. Machi muttered that keeping them conscious was unnecessary. Feitan complained that they were too loud. Shalnark noted details, turning their reactions into data. Nobunaga laughed at how much trouble one person could cause.

But none of them acted without Chrollo’s approval.

When Chrollo finally approached, the cavern fell into a still, heavy calm. He examined the captured sibling the way one might study a rare artifact. Not with cruelty — with fascination.

To him, they were the perfect lure.

He believed the fighter would come for them. Love, he said, made people predictable. And the Troupe knew better than to question his certainty.

Outside, the wind swept across miles of desert, carrying sand, heat, and the beginning of a storm — the kind stirred when someone dangerous discovers exactly what the Troupe has done.