Chapter 16

Enter the Taskmasters (試練官登場, Shirenkan Tōjō) is the 16th chapter of the Hunter × Hunter manga, written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Togashi.

Summary
Only 69 hours are left and everybody is ready to move. There is a door on the way with the instructions, "Press O to open and X to not open." All of them cast their votes and the result is X-1 and O-4. Tonpa apologizes for pushing the wrong button. Leorio gets angry at him for this. Shortly after, they hit a fork and come across another question: "Which direction? O for the right and X for the left." The result is X-2 and O-3. Leorio, who chose the left path, is not satisfied with this result. Kurapika explains that people typically tend to choose left when lost, so the left side is more likely to be more difficult.

The group then sees a ring suspended above a giant pit in the middle of a room; there are prisoners waiting on the other side. One takes his cape off and introduces himself as Bendot. Their goal is to fight with the candidates, one against one. If Gon's team loses, they will have to spend their remaining time inside the tower. They must win three out of five matches in order to proceed. They choose to accept the match using Majority Rules.

Bendot is the first one to fight for his group. Tonpa volunteers to go first to "test the waters". Bendot proposes a fight to death, to which Tonpa agrees. The prisoner charges himself to his opponent but without further ado, Tonpa quits. Everyone looks dumbfounded and the win goes over to Bendott's team. Leorio blames Tonpa for this.

Characters in order of appearance

 * Leorio
 * Tonpa
 * Kurapika
 * Killua
 * Gon
 * Bendot