♪
( Menthuthuyoupi yawns )
Hmm?
( Grunts )
♪
( Singing in Japanese )
♪
Narrator: Upon entering the palace,
killua’s first thought was...
Killua: I knew it.
Narrator: That was what he thought.
Instead of feeling pitou’s en as they expected,
they found only youpi,
who wasn’t supposed to be on the first floor,
standing right in front of them.
Experience enabled killua
to remain calm when faced with this situation,
which, despite their extensive planning discussions,
had never come up.
Menthuthuyoupi: Who are these guys?
Where did they come from?
Narrator: Youpi was faced
with an implausible situation of his own,
but he simply ceased all thought processes.
( Menthuthuyoupi growls )
♪
( Flesh crackling )
My body is a shield.
As long as I stand, the king will be safe.
Narrator: As a magical beast hybrid,
he was the only nonhuman hybrid among the guards.
Perhaps because of this, he cared less
about his individual identity than the other two.
This lack of ego became strength.
♪
Youpi smiled belligerently
and began transforming as shoot stood frozen in his tracks.
( Menthuthuyoupi chuckles )
Narrator: It wasn’t because shoot
found himself psychologically defeated.
He knew...
Shoot: If I move any closer to him than this,
he’ll strike,
and his attack could hit knuckle and meleoron,
who I can only presume are up ahead.
Narrator: But just as he was preparing
to let loose his flying hands and cage
to attract youpi’s attention to himself,
it came.
Shoot: Huh?
( Killua gasps )
Wait. This is the dragon dive.
So netero’s friend was...
Narrator: Only killua understood what was happening,
and it froze him on the spot.
Being ignorant, the shock for the others was much greater.
Of them, there were only two.
Gon and youpi thought of nothing but the enemy they faced.
Morel: No way.
Shoot: Has he lost it?
Killua: Your target isn’t youpi.
No. Hold on.
( Footsteps echoing )
♪
Narrator: To killua,
the realization came only a moment later.
The others followed soon after.
Killua: Seriously?
How in the hell did he realize that?
And so quickly in a situation like this?
Narrator: Although highly unlikely,
if meleoron and knuckle
were to be pierced by the dragon’s arrows
while god’s accomplice was in play
and, as a result, died instantly,
would they cease to be invisible?
Or, as nen is known to intensify after death,
would their bodies simply rot and decay
without ever being found?
No one knew the answer.
Assuming the latter,
even confirming whether they were still alive
would be all but impossible.
That meant that, in the worst-case scenario,
someone else would have to take on youpi.
Shoot: That should have been my job.
Gon!
Morel: It’s not shoot’s fault.
Even I didn’t realize it as quickly as killua did.
Don’t blame yourself, all right?
Pull yourself together.
If gon and killua take youpi, then pitou falls to you.
♪
Narrator: However, at that moment,
shoot was experiencing a completely different emotion.
Shoot: Gon! I want to scream it to the entire world!
That’s gon!
He’s so much younger than me,
and still, I owe him everything!
More than anything,
I feared facing danger, even opportunity.
I locked myself inside a cage to feel safe,
muffling even my own words so that no one could hurt me.
I despised myself, but I couldn’t fix it.
Friends and teachers gave me advice,
but I brushed it off,
’cause they didn’t have those fears themselves.
They were strong.
But somehow...
The one who managed to break me out of my cage
was a young boy whose strength can’t hold a candle to mine.
Narrator: All of this was true.
Shoot did indeed shy away from everything.
Shoot: I will survive this
so I can thank you.
Narrator: What shoot failed to realize
was that whenever he’d been faced with adversity,
that’s when he truly came into his own.
Morel: All right.
( Menthuthuyoupi growls )
( Gon gasps )
Menthuthuyoupi: Hmm?
( Groans )
- ( Hunters gasping ) - ( Gon grunts )
Morel and shoot: Knuckle and meleoron...
Killua and gon: Are alive!
♪
Menthuthuyoupi: What?!
Who the hell just attacked me?
I didn’t see it.
Did they throw something? Was it in my blind spot?
Knuckle: Hakoware, activate.
Narrator: Of course they verified beforehand
that hakoware: Bankruptcy chapter seven
would work with god’s accomplice.
As long as god’s accomplice was in play,
youpi would be unable to see a.P.R.,
so it was reasonable enough for them to expect youpi
to question what had just happened
rather than concentrate on the enemies in front of him.
Menthuthuyoupi: I don’t sense any damage,
which means my focus right now should be...
Narrator: So far, everything had proceeded according to plan,
but even though knuckle succeeded in landing a blow,
he felt a chill run down his spine.
( Knuckle gasps )
Is this for real?
His aura is unlimited!
♪
Narrator: A veteran of over 5,000 battles,
knuckle could quantify his opponent’s power
based on his experience and instinct,
and encountering a foe with unprecedented powers
wasn’t even a rare event for him.
But there was no comparing the monster
that stood before him with immense amounts of aura
to that of the countless opponents he had faced before.
( Knuckle sputters )
Five times that of morel?
Ten times? More?
( Scoffs ) I can’t tell.
Narrator: This experience was new to him.
( Knuckle groaning )
All right, let’s say he’s ten times stronger,
with 700,000 aura.
Sure, he’d go bankrupt eventually,
but how long would that take?
Neferpitou: Sire!
Narrator: Just then...
The extermination team felt pitou’s ominous aura
as it enveloped them all.
That momentary hesitation was not lost on youpi.
Shaiapouf: Sire!
Sire!
( Gasps )
♪
( Gasping )
Narrator: Since pitou lacked wings,
the only option was to drop straight down.
However, in this instance,
that may actually have been fortunate.
Had the option been available,
pitou would certainly have rushed straight toward the king,
just as pouf did.
This is a royal guard’s natural response
when the king is threatened.
Given the circumstances, it’s unlikely that pitou
would have had the presence of mind to use en.
As a result...
Neferpitou: The guest’s quarters
are on the second floor of the west tower.
There. The king is with the blind woman.
( Gasps )
( Shudders )
They’re also using en to locate the king!
Narrator: And it was then, in that very moment, that pitou
realized the true gravity of their situation.
In an instant, pitou crouched,
just as the four-legged ancestors had done,
upper legs hard as steel
and swelled to twice the size they had been
during the battle with kite...
All in order to reach the king before the intruders could.
But only a second later...
( Neferpitou gasps )
♪
Narrator: The destination pitou was traveling toward
began to emanate negative energy.
It was so strong that pitou
immediately regretted this decision.
Neferpitou: This is the king’s.
Narrator: The aura coming from the king was so unguarded
that his current state of mind was quite easy to deduce.
As a result, pitou was painfully aware
that the course of events was heading
unimaginably and dramatically in the wrong direction.
The central staircase came crashing down.
( Rumbling )
♪
When the king looked away,
time suddenly began to move again.
But all besides the king were still frozen in time.
♪
Even those who broke in to assassinate the king
stood in place, breath catching in their throats
at the sight before them, a young girl covered in blood.
She rested in the arms of a grotesque creature,
who, despite his appearance, held her in a way
that could only be described as gentle and kind.
King: Pitou.
( Neferpitou gasps ) Sire?
Narrator: The expression on the king’s face
had returned to normal.
This only increased pitou’s uneasiness.
King: You will heal komugi.
I’m counting on you.
♪
Narrator: Through all of this,
the two veterans continued to stand in silence,
watching their enemies closely as an expression of respect.
What was unfolding was an act of love for another’s life.
An intrusion at this point would mean the complete loss
of all of their justification and humanity.
Zeno: You know this isn’t
what you told me I was signing up for.
Narrator: Zeno’s rebuke was just,
and netero couldn’t help but feel the same way.
King: Not here.
We should do this somewhere else.
I believe a change of venue...
Would benefit you two as well.
Narrator: Netero had spent a great deal of money
to enlist zeno’s help
in order to separate the king from the royal guards.
He had no reason to object to the king’s proposal.
However...
Netero: Yes. Fine.
Narrator: He could not shake the feeling
that he was missing something in this encounter.
Neferpitou: Dr. Blythe.
Narrator: The moment that pitou’s ability was activated...
♪
It distracted the two men for a split second,
a distraction for which one could not blame them...
And right then, the king calmly and easily
passed between them without the slightest hint of fear.
♪
Their opponent was an even greater monster.
( Singing in Japanese )