Hunter x Hunter has never been shy about brutal succession politics, but the standoff between the 14th and 6th Princes on the Black Whale stands out for a different reason.
Camilla Hui Guo Rou walks into Benjamin’s quarters, guns blazing, and he refuses to fire back. His Nen protects him from every shot. His guards are told to let her pass unharmed. It looks like mercy. It isn’t.
Camilla’s Assassination Attempt in Hunter x Hunter
Camilla’s plan starts with a lie. She claims she’s chasing down an attempted assassin and demands Benjamin hand him over, using the excuse to force her way past his guards.
But when she reaches him, Benjamin refuses to play along, and she empties multiple shots at him, every one of them stopped by his Nen. Furious that he won’t shoot back, she screams at him to return fire, only for his guard Furykov to physically hold her back.
On its face, this reads like restraint from a man who has the upper hand and doesn’t need to use it. That’s the wrong read entirely.
Cat’s Name: The Ability That Changes Everything
Camilla’s Nen ability, Cat’s Name, is a post-mortem type. It does nothing while she’s alive. The moment she dies, a monstrous Guardian Spirit Beast materializes behind whoever killed her, traps them, and drains their life force to bring her back from the dead, fully healed.
Killing Camilla in the room, even in self-defense, even with total justification, would summon that beast on the spot. Benjamin himself carries an inherited ability called Benjamin Baton, which absorbs the Nen of loyal followers when they die in his service, so he understands better than almost anyone in the story how dangerous a death-triggered ability can be.
Shooting back, striking her down, anything that ends her life in front of him, hands his own death sentence to whichever guard or Nen user happens to be standing closest when the beast appears.
Refusing to touch her isn’t weakness. It’s the only response that doesn’t end in someone on his side getting devoured.
Why Restraint Is the Smarter Political Move
There’s a second layer here that’s easy to miss on a first read. Benjamin isn’t just avoiding a monster. He’s avoiding a war he can’t win yet.
The Kakin succession conflict runs on plausible deniability. Princes assassinate through proxies, poison, and Guardian Spirit Beasts summoned from a safe distance, never through open confrontation in front of witnesses.
If Benjamin kills Camilla directly, in her own attempted assassination, he hands every remaining prince a justification to unite against him as the one who broke the unspoken rules of the game. Letting her walk away alive, humiliated and unable to touch him, costs him nothing and paints her as the aggressor to anyone watching.
That’s also why he orders his guards not to engage. Furykov could end the confrontation permanently with one command. Benjamin doesn’t give it, because a body on the floor of his quarters is a liability no matter whose Nen ability triggers next.
Togashi builds Kakin’s succession arc around information asymmetry. Nobody knows who has which ability, who’s allied with whom, or what dying will actually unleash. Camilla’s Cat’s Name turns her own death into her greatest weapon, which means the safest move against her was never violence. It’s patience.
Benjamin surviving her assault without lifting a finger isn’t luck, and it isn’t restraint for its own sake. It’s a prince who understands the board well enough to know that some fights aren’t worth winning the obvious way.
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