The Expedition Deal

Beans interrupts Cheadle's first Zodiac meeting as chairman with a broadcast: Kakin's King Nasubi Hui Guo Rou declares that the voyage to the Dark Continent will launch from Kakin. Having 'technically' become a new nation thirty years ago, Kakin never signed the V5 treaty forbidding the trip.

Nasubi introduces the man Kakin hired to lead the expedition: Beyond Netero, son of the late chairman Isaac Netero — a son the Zodiacs never knew existed. Beyond invites the whole world to come to Kakin and join the journey to the 'new world'.

Cheadle reveals that Ging and Pariston have resigned from the Zodiacs — and that the V5 have handed the remaining ten a special assignment: hunt down Beyond Netero. Pariston, meanwhile, already stands among Beyond's ten core followers.

The Zodiacs watch the DVD Netero left for exactly this contingency. Beyond once defied his father on a Dark Continent trip, took an unexplored route, and brought back new threats — so Netero banned him and the Association from the Continent until his own death. His final request: the Association should reach the Dark Continent before Beyond does.

Mid-argument about how to hunt him, the Zodiacs get a call from Beyond Netero himself — and then the man walks in. He instructs them to tell the V5 that they have 'captured' Beyond Netero, converting his own arrest into the opening move of his negotiation.

Interviewed in his cell, Beyond predicts the Zodiacs will end up releasing him and joining his voyage, then formally declares war on them; Cheadle accepts and has the exchange recorded. The plan crystallizes: Beyond travels imprisoned, watched, and released only on-site — while he counts on contacting his companions anyway.

With only military options left to stop Kakin, the V5 and the International Permit Agency tally the grim ledger — 149 known attempts on the Dark Continent, 28 survivors, 3 reintegrated — and conclude it is better to usher Kakin into the fold as a sixth member and steer the voyage than to fight it.

Kakin unveils its transport vessel: the Black Whale, built to carry 200,000 people, first of a planned fleet meant to move a hundred million emigrants in five years. The maiden voyage will carry Beyond Netero, King Nasubi, and his fourteen princes; civilian berths go by lottery.

Ging walks into the expedition team's hideout and calls Pariston's bluff: if the governments stall, Pariston is ready to unleash 5,000 Chimera Ant soldiers he has been sheltering. Ging announces he will no longer let Pariston do as he pleases — he wants to 'play by himself'.

Cheadle phones Leorio and offers him a Zodiac seat, sweetening it with a place in her own medical program for the voyage. Leorio accepts — and immediately asks whether the second vacant chair is still open, because he has someone in mind.

Mizaistom tracks Kurapika down and invites him to the Zodiacs at Leorio's recommendation. Kurapika refuses until Mizaistom names the price of joining: the Association knows who holds the largest collection of Scarlet Eyes — Kakin's Fourth Prince, Tserriednich Hui Guo Rou. Kurapika joins.

On the drive to Association headquarters, Kurapika takes Leorio's call. Leorio assures him Gon is fine, asks for an e-mail address Kurapika still refuses to give, and tells him his talents are more useful with the Zodiacs.

At the memorial holding the Scarlet Eyes he has recovered, Kurapika studies Tserriednich's photograph and counts the cost of every retrieval. The Fourth Prince is the last collector with the last group of eyes — including Pairo's — leaving Kurapika to wonder what remains when the journey ends and there is no home to return to.

Rather than fight Beyond's followers, Ging offers to double whatever Beyond paid each of them, upfront, in exchange for the No. 2 position Pariston holds. The team splits over the money — and Ging coolly identifies them all as expert Temp Hunters, about 25 of the Association's 200.

Trying to activate his aura, Gon finds nothing answers. Ging later frames it as a return to 'normal' — the price of the contract that gave Gon impossible power against Neferpitou — and tells him to be thankful that was all it cost.

Ging details the five calamities humanity dragged home from the Dark Continent — Brion, Ai, Hellbell, Pap, and the Zobae immortality disease — all deadlier than the Chimera Ants, with containment the only countermeasure. He caps it with a bombshell: the legendary guidebook 'Journey to the New World' is still being written, and its author is Don Freecss.

On Ging's advice to use the loss as a chance to look for 'something', Gon returns to Whale Island and Mito. Over dinner he admits that finding Ging was the goal, not staying with him — and that without Nen, following his father would only hold him back.

The Fourth Prince invites two starstruck women to his hotel, chats pleasantly, then phones an aide to order a fresh pair — from a bathroom painted in their blood. In one page the target of Kurapika's mission is revealed as a practiced serial killer.

At the IPA's direction, Cheadle presents Beyond a contract: 24-hour watch, a tracking anklet, monitored communications, no resistance, all discoveries to the V6, no disclosure — one violation means life in prison. Beyond reads it, signs, stabs the pen through the pad, and notes only three things remain: capacity, means, and contract.

Mizaistom asks what happens after the Scarlet Eyes are recovered. Kurapika says he wants nothing else from Tserriednich and will yield to almost any demand, but adds that two collectors who once preferred death both surrendered the eyes without dying. He expects the Fourth Prince to do the same.

Cheadle briefs the full Zodiacs — new Rat and Boar included — that the V5 has admitted Kakin and become the V6, and that the Five Threats have been re-ranked above the Chimera Ants. The mission: capture at least one Threat, survive the trip home, and manage Beyond throughout. The twelve split into Science, Intelligence, Defense, and Flora/Fauna teams.

In his first meeting, Kurapika asks whether anyone has identified Beyond's allies inside the Association — Beyond planned around his father's death for years, so infiltration is certain. Mizaistom hustles him out and admits he and Cheadle reached the same conclusion: the mole may sit among the Zodiacs themselves, and it must never be mentioned aloud again.

A month on, Beyond's assassins have all failed the 289th Hunter Exam — rumor says the new Rat can read minds. Muherr's soldiers present Ging and Pariston two options: one of them leaves the team. Ging offers a third — the assassins leave — and Pariston a fourth: the assassins die.

Muherr's henchmen open fire with conjured guns; Ging knocks them all out using an imitation of Leorio's remote-punch ability — he can copy any physical technique he has been hit with — then reveals he knew the whole attack was Pariston's stage play to scout his abilities.

Muherr explains why the money offer nearly broke the team: soldiers run on trust, and a rumor of being bought is ostracism. Ging apologizes, routes the money into the Norwell Fund for fallen soldiers' families — binding himself under mercenary account rules — and is accepted as No. 2, with Muherr holding absolute battlefield command.

The 289th exam's final phase is an interview about Beyond's expedition, with Kurapika behind the glass running his Dowsing Chain as a lie detector. Beyond's plants are weeded out — though Kurapika notes the chain would fail against anyone whose memory had been altered.

Under cover of the Zodiacs' new ability-sharing session — staged by Mizaistom to 'strengthen cooperation' — Kurapika watches through a hidden camera with his Dowsing Chain. The traitor feeding Beyond's side is Saiyu, the Monkey.

Mizaistom offers Beyond attendance at Kakin's departure-eve celebration in exchange for naming the Zodiac spy. Beyond corrects him twice: he knows of no spy, and he does not care about the ceremony — Kakin will pressure the V6, and the Zodiacs themselves will end up begging him to attend. Kurapika, reviewing the tape, confirms every word is true.

Word reaches Kurapika, Mizaistom, and Cheadle: six unidentified Kakin princes are hiring bodyguards for the celebration and the voyage, with preference for Hunters. Every spy screened out of the exam now has a side door onto the ship.

Kurapika recruits Biscuit, Basho, Izunavi, Hanzo, and Melody to apply to the six princes' postings and feed him information — anything that gets him physical contact with Tserriednich, at which point everyone may abort with full pay. He profiles the six near-identical listings to guess which one is Halkenburg's.

The posting Kurapika pegged as Halkenburg's belongs to Queen Oito, mother of the infant Fourteenth Prince: the vagueness was bait for assassins and fake followers, whose self-interest makes them useful shields. She reveals the succession war outright and offers ten times the fee for the real job — get her and Woble off the ship alive. Kurapika accepts, with conditions.

The applications resolve: Izunavi is hired by Tyson, Biscuit by Marayam, Basho by Luzurus, Melody by Kacho, and Hanzo by Momoze. Kurapika's network now touches six royal households — none of them Tserriednich's.