Lucilfer (ChrolloxReader)

Chapter 48

Touché. Hisoka wouldn't dare pass up the chance to oversee the progress of one of his favorite toys for a reason as trivial as visiting a friend.

So, what was I to do? I needed more information on the chain user, but that wasn't exactly my main goal at the moment. Hisoka was, strangely enough, even more unremitting than the young man with a vendetta against his family's murderer, but that most likely had to do with the energy these battles provided to him, rather than the energy they drained from him, which was the case of the chain user. No, I couldn't focus on Kurapika first, as much as I wanted to for Uvogin's and Pakunoda's sake, and for the sake of Nobunaga, just so he knew that he held my support, that I, too, cared about avenging the Troupe. But I also wanted to because I knew the chain user would never cease until the Troupe was extinguished, and that wasn't an option. I didn't hold hatred for Kurapika the way Nobunaga did—actually, I felt nothing at all towards that inconsequential human—but I wanted Nobunaga to feel supported, which is why I despised the fact that it was more imperative to focus first on Hisoka's endless lust for battle.

I'd already begun to map out a sort of plan, something tangible to work by, a rough outline. Most of my pondering had been done in the sleepless nights I spent at Heaven's Arena, but I was still unsure about a few points, only a bit put off by a few crucial details to how this would work. I'd previously decided that I needed to worry about getting over with challenging Hisoka, but that was going to be a bit easier said than actually done. Fighting him would require more than any single ability I could pull from Bandit's Secret, and none of them were as versatile as his use of Bungee Gum. In order to defeat Hisoka, a magician, one who relied on the element of surprise to win every battle, I would need to attain a level of even more chaotic shock. It was vital that I utterly perplex him, and no single ability I owned could achieve that standard.

Perhaps that was the issue with so many of his previous challengers—each of them hedged their bets in a head-on attack strong enough to destroy him, but they were dealing with an absolutely deceptive opponent, one who could read too easily into any attack so simple. On the contrary, my offense needed to consist of something even more deceptive than him, or perhaps so complex that no description could really do it justice, but any description given would only further confuse him.

I'll need to find a way to psychologically overwhelm him, if that is even possible.

Things were simpler before, when my fight with Hisoka was something I didn't need to be so calculating about. Of course, I was still determined and confident that I would win, that there was no other possibility, that my victory was a simple, consistent truth, but even if I was defeated, even if Hisoka killed me, I would emerge just as victorious. The Spider would continue—it didn't need me, and I'd already accepted my death. And in a way, this was still true. My death was the same to me as my life; it held no greater meaning, nor any greater weight.

And why would it matter? I was not attached to this physical world—my legacy had made its imprint on society, a cold and uncaring society that hardly spent two glances in my direction before I attained the facilities to forcefully turn its attention, and it would continue to do so. I despised human nature as a general whole, and understood it, as well as myself, to be fully finite. The limits of society were perhaps what interested me the most, that some would go to such lengths to gain the approval of an audience before ultimately dying out and remaining unremarkable, unobserved, and unapproved by the next generation. But I refused to search for approval within the world I was condemned to—I achieved acknowledgement from those who had previously seen me as nonexistent, and that shocked, perhaps horrified, and perhaps admiring acknowledgement would continue far beyond my inability to identify myself, and far beyond my death. Death was inconsequential.