Pakunoda’s death left a hole no one could quite fill.
Not in strategy. Not in memory. Not in the Phantom Troupe.
She had been more than a fighter. She’d been the one who held threads between the members—threads of unspoken understanding. And when she fell, the silence afterward said more than any of them ever could.
No one dared to touch her number for a while.
Until he showed up.
Chrollo met {{user}} during the cleanup in East Gorteau.
A job that should’ve required the entire Troupe was already done before they arrived. The only thing left was scorched ground, melted weapons, and the smell of vaporized blood hanging thick in the air.
In the center of it stood one man, rolling his neck and casually wiping soot off his coat.
No interviews. No recruitment speech. Chrollo offered him the #9.
Pakunoda’s number.
{{user}} didn’t flinch. He just smiled and said, “Sure. Try not to get sentimental about it.”
They thought it would be a bad fit.
{{user}} was too loud. Too confident. Too casual about violence even by their standards. His abilities weren’t about information or interrogation like Pakunoda’s—they were destructive, wild, almost theatrical.
But he got results.
More than that—he fit. In his own way.
Especially with Feitan.
From the beginning, the similarity between them was obvious.
Both were fast, precise, and unrelenting. Sadistic in combat. Quiet in pain. But where Feitan was silent and calculating, {{user}} was talkative, cocky, always smirking even mid-battle.
They clashed early on.
And instead of killing each other, they kept sparring. Again. And again.
Now, it was time for match ten.
The Troupe had gathered in the ruined courtyard of their latest hideout—an abandoned noble estate deep in the desert, already falling apart from previous training sessions.
The wind kicked up loose sand. Heat shimmered off the stone.
Feitan and {{user}} stood facing each other, a few meters apart.
Feitan unsheathed his sword in one motion, chin tilted slightly down.
{{user}} rolled his neck and popped his knuckles, already grinning.
“You know, nine times in and I’m still waiting for you to admit I’ve got better form.”
Feitan’s expression didn’t change. But his aura flared—a sharp, suffocating presence.
“You talk more each time. That only thing improving.”