Tonpa did not begin immediately.
He kept his eyes on Killua’s reflection in the window while rearranging the lie inside his head.
He did not want it to be perfect.
Perfect stories sounded rehearsed, and tragedies delivered without hesitation inspired more suspicion than sympathy.
He needed a little silence, hesitation in the right places, and a story that resembled Killua’s life without matching it too closely.
The assassins would become thieves.
As for the illness and the Hunter License, he would leave them where he had placed them in the lie Leorio had overheard.
Tonpa allowed the silence to stretch a little longer before speaking.
“There’s a reason I believe everyone should be allowed to choose their own path.”
Gon pulled away from the window and turned toward him.
Killua shifted his gaze in Tonpa’s direction without changing his position.
“What is it?” Gon asked.
Tonpa lowered his eyes to his hands.
“I grew up in a family of professional thieves.”
The faint amusement disappeared from Killua’s face.
Gon leaned forward with interest.
Tonpa continued.
“To them, stealing wasn’t a crime or a choice.
It was the family business—a profession passed from parents to their children, whether the children wanted it or not.”
He let his shoulders sag slightly.
“They began training me when I was a child.
They taught me how to pick locks, watch people, and invent excuses quickly.
They would send me into markets and tell me to return with a specific item without paying for it.”
“What happened if you failed?” Gon asked.
Tonpa’s fingers went still against each other.
“They repeated the training until I succeeded.”
He added nothing else.
He allowed his tone to explain the part he had left unsaid.
Killua’s eyes moved from the window to Tonpa.
His expression no longer held the lazy detachment it had only minutes earlier.
He was listening now—not merely searching for a flaw, but because something in the story had become familiar to him.
‘I found the way in.’
Tonpa kept his expression composed and continued.
“My mother wasn’t one of them.
She hated what they did, but she had nowhere else to go.
When she became ill and needed someone to care for her, they decided she had become a burden.”
The last trace of a smile disappeared from Gon’s face.
“What did they do?”
“They left her in an old house and moved to another city.
To them, she was like a broken tool—once she stopped being useful, there was no reason to keep her.”
He paused, then added:
“I stayed with her.”
Gon did not look entirely surprised by the mention of her illness.
Tonpa had expected as much.
He had personally heard Leorio repeat what he had overheard from behind the pillar, in a voice loud enough to inform half the hall.
That was why Tonpa had preserved the foundation of the story: a sick mother, money he did not possess, and a Hunter License he had believed could save her. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
All he was doing now was constructing a new past on top of a lie they already believed.
“Did you try to treat her?” Gon asked.
Tonpa nodded.
“We had no money.
I knew how to steal and deceive people, but I wasn’t good enough to obtain what we needed without getting caught.
Then I heard about the Hunter License.”
He raised his eyes slightly.
“A Hunter License can open doors that remain closed to ordinary people.
High-paying work, loans, access to restricted places…
I thought passing the Hunter Exam would give me enough money to pay for her treatment.”
Gon looked at the bag of juice bottles hanging beside Tonpa’s seat.
Tonpa noticed, but he did not avoid the boy’s gaze.
“I failed my first attempt, then my second.
With every failure, I began seeing the other applicants as people stealing an opportunity that should have belonged to me.
I convinced myself that reducing their numbers would improve my chances.”
Killua spoke for the first time since the story began.
“That’s why you started poisoning rookies?”
Tonpa slowly nodded.
“It began with the juice.
At first, I told myself I was doing it for her.
After that, it became easier every time.
The deception became a habit, and the habit became the only thing I thought I was good at.”
After a moment of hesitation, Gon asked:
“What happened to your mother?”
Tonpa did not answer immediately.
He tightened his jaw and forced himself not to blink.
After several seconds, moisture began gathering in his eyes.
He did not need an actual tear.
Fighting the urge to cry was more convincing than allowing the tears to fall.
“She died years ago.”
He allowed his voice to crack on the final word, then turned toward the window.
Silence settled over them.
The airship’s engines produced a low, steady hum while clouds drifted slowly beyond the glass.
Tonpa gave his words enough time to settle, but he did not remain silent long enough to appear as though he were waiting for comfort.
He quickly wiped the corner of his eye.
“After she died, I had no real reason to continue.
But I had already spent years trying to pass, and I couldn’t stop and admit that everything I had done had been meaningless.”
He looked at the bottles inside his bag.
“I kept entering the exam, and I kept ruining other people’s chances.
After a while, I forgot why I had started in the first place.”
Gon was watching him with open sympathy.
Killua remained silent, but his gaze was no longer searching for the deception in quite the same way.
He appeared to be comparing Tonpa’s words to something he knew intimately—something he had not told either of them yet.
“What I did was my choice, even if the beginning wasn’t.”
He kept his eyes forward, careful not to direct the words solely toward Killua.
“But no one has the right to decide what you will do with your lives.
Not your family, not your past, and not anyone claiming to know what is best for you.”
Then he looked at them.
“You’re both free to choose what you want.”
Gon nodded immediately, as though the idea required no consideration.
Killua turned his gaze back toward the clouds.
A chime sounded inside Tonpa’s head.
[Killua Zoldyck’s Trust: 2% → 5%]
Another notification appeared.
[Deception Registered.]
[Target: Killua Zoldyck]
[Nen Points +20]
[Experience Points +20]
A third notification followed, bearing Gon’s name.
[Deception Registered.]
[Target: Gon Freecss]
[Nen Points +10]
[Experience Points +10]
[Total Nen Points: 191]
[Experience Points: 531/600]
Tonpa dismissed the windows before they could ruin his expression, then lowered his head as though he were still trapped in painful memories.
Internally, he regarded the new points with almost as much admiration as he felt for his own performance.
He had invented an entire family, nearly cried over an illness and death that had never happened, and made Killua reconsider him because the boy had seen a piece of himself inside the story.
‘Even I almost believed myself.’
The ease with which he had summoned grief unsettled him for a moment.
Then he remembered the reward and felt better.
Killua remained silent, his eyes fixed on the clouds beyond the window.
His gaze no longer held the same suspicion as before.
In its place was something closer to hesitation.
Finally, he spoke.
“What you said about families not having the right to choose our lives…”
Tonpa raised his eyes.
“What about it?”
Killua lowered his gaze to his hands and sighed.
“I understand what you meant.”
Gon waited for him to continue, while Tonpa remained silent.
Killua’s eyes settled on Gon.
He did not ask Tonpa to leave, but he did not direct the confession toward him either.
“Because my family decided what I would become before I was old enough to choose.”
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