Chereads / HxH: The Applications Of Nen / Chapter 98 - Showdown: Circus and Puppets!

Chapter 98 - Showdown: Circus and Puppets!

__________ POV Narration__________

Ashton stared and hummed as his student filled the room with his friend's corpse. It was a curious choice, but the old scientist was never one to judge.

He leisurely hummed. Watching things unfold around him.

Cheadle was slowly beating Bonolenov into submission. As she was a lot more resilient than him.

Kurapika and Feitan had been caught in a standstill for a while now, but they weren't in Ashton's field of view.

Their fight had brought them further down the corridor, breaking most of the walls in their paths.

Using his book, Chrollo took out yet another Hatsu, 'Order Stamp', whatever object had a head and was considered lifeless by the user would be controlled by him.

All he needed to do was touch their heads with the stamp.

The puppets would only be able to listen to basic commands and would refuse to do things they used to be against in their past life(if they had any)

It was a useful ability. And, coupled with the 80 clones of Nobunaga's corpse, Chrollo had managed to make a sizable group.

All of the broken-down walls around them managed to create quite an open area. Allowing Chrollo to make a good amount of puppets.

But then... Ashton had finished his 'ritual' as he finished humming, a structure made out of Nen slowly moulded itself into existence, as the Old Scientist stared with glee.

The carnival music slowly filled the area as Cheadle and Bonolenov were instantly distracted by the strange occurrence.

They weren't expecting such a bizarre thing to just appear in the middle of the room. A decently sized Merry-Go-Round.

Thankfully, the ceiling was high enough. But, its appearance coupled with the small army of puppets made the space quite cramped.

The horses of it spun around, jumping up and down cheerfully. All of their riders were lifeless except for one.

It jumped up, dancing in the air and landing away from the carriage. Its face was one Chrollo could easily recognize.

Its body was just that of the doll, but it was carrying Hisoka's face, a forced smile stuck on its lips.

Chrollo wasn't one to be afraid of such things. But it was still unnerving to see his former opponent appear in this form.

Illumi and Kalluto, who had been standing by the side, were also quite shocked. But they only found it interesting more than anything.

Especially when it started spitting out cards randomly. Throwing them around and cutting up the puppets that Chrollo kept making.

Now, the condition was that the Carousel couldn't kill, but the puppets weren't considered living, as they were just bodies controlled by Nen.

The puppet entered the crowd, its small body dancing around the puppets in skilled moves. Perfectly replicating the style of the person it had stolen the face of.

Punching puppets left and right, sticking his 'Bungee Gum' onto them and throwing them around.

Ashton just watched a bit. Slowly, the puppet was being defeated. Eventually, one of Chrollo's puppets exploded. Sending the little clown flying away.

This was another one of Chrollo's copied Hatsu's, using the bookmark, he was copying it alongside the Order Stamp, which was controlling his Nobunaga puppets.

'The Sun and Moon' consisted of attaching two symbols to targets, when the two symbols touch each other, they would explode.

Chrollo had managed to charge a few of those symbols to explode on a decent scale. But he didn't have enough time to mark too many of the puppets.

Ashton didn't make a move to help out the struggling clown. But the ride revved up, the horses started spinning violently, their heads twirling around targeting Chrollo, who tried his best to hide in the crowd.

But the Horses didn't seem to care about such methods. Their mouths dragged themselves open as they started spitting a variety of weapons towards Chrollo.

This time, one of the horses was also spitting out playing cards. The projectiles tore through the crowd as they tried to make their way towards Chrollo.

But the bodies of the puppets managed to stop most of the barrage. Not easily mind you.

The projectiles were coming towards Chrollo in strange patterns, some curving unnaturally in the air and striking from different angles.

The Zoldyck brothers watched with intrigue as the rusted carousel ride sung its melody and ripped apart the corpse puppets with cold steel.

Chrollo was starting to get more and more concerned by the situation. He had no way of helping his friends, and he had little control of the fight he was currently in.

He could only hope Feitan would finish his bout with the Chain User and come to his or Bonolenov's aid.

What he didn't expect were threads to start gathering around the spinning deathtrap, slowly clogging it up and making it slow down exponentially.

Machi had somewhat managed to recover from her daze, Her threads were slowly breaking as she kept creating more to stop the Merry-Go-Round from spinning.

She didn't keep the threads attached to her body, as she would just be sent flying once more if she did.

But Ashton wasn't going to let her get away with her actions so easily. He wanted to see how his new Hatsu would fare against Chrollo, but he hadn't designed it to fight multiple opponents.

So he would need to take care of the ones that intervened.

He rushed at Machi, the pink-haired girl panicked, sending threads in Ashton's direction, trying her best to connect his body to the Merry-Go-Round.

Ashton sidestepped and dodged most of the attacks sent his way. Then someone else rushed in, Phinks had finally regained his consciousness and decided to help out his leader.

He had already winded up his punch a lot in preparation, now he rushed Ashton at full speed, intercepting him before he reached Machi.

Phinks extended his fist, punching towards the old scientist with aggressive force. Ashton simply jumped over him.

Using his fist as support for half a second and reaching the blond man's back. Phinks was about to swing his fist back around.

But Ashton grabbed his collar and dragged him backwards, tripping him into the ground and using his free hand to try and stab his heart out.

It was quickly tangled up in threads, as his fingers only managed to reach the lower side of his lungs before being pulled backwards.

Ashton lacked enough stability to pull back towards the threads, so he just spun in the air and threw a knife towards Machi.

A copse puppet quickly blocked the knife with its body, as a few of them had started to swarm the location when Ashton started dashing towards Machi.

The blocking was successful. But what they didn't expect was the knife to explode after a second. Sending Machi flying back into the wall and disabling a few puppets in the process.

Phinks quickly wound up his punch once more and tried to hit Ashton's head. Ashton was still in a backwards motion, but he didn't need to be grounded to dodge that attack.

He bent his neck backwards, as Phinks's fist passed right above his nose, he used his backward momentum to whip his leg around and sever the blond man's windpipe.

Blood gushed out of his fresh wound as he tried to hold it closed, but he couldn't do anything to help with the slowly decreasing oxygen supply his brain was receiving.

That lead to him collapsing on the ground, still holding onto his neck with a desperate look on his face.

The Merry-Go-Round had already started spinning, as Machi was busy regaining her composure after being violently thrown into a wall.

The barrage of cold weapons kept up, making Chrollo go on the defensive once more.

Ashton just smiled a bit, as he slowly walked towards Machi, the smile on his face terrified the pink-haired girl. His cold gaze told her everything she needed to know of her fate.

He grasped her neck and held her up. Looking her in the eyes as she thrashed around, trying her best to escape the clutches of the madman in front of her.

"Good night~," He said, as her struggle eventually died down. He dropped her corpse on the floor, leaning on the battered wall as he watched his former pupil's performance.

'This isn't all that shabby~' He thought with a smile.

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Eyy, Machi do be kinda dead. To be fair, she was completely loyal to Chrollo. She wouldn't have appreciated the mc just killing him.

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