OP should take note here. Don't make someone who was certain to die give up X years of life and pretend that's a great sacrifice. If you assume the people in HXH peak around 30-50 years old, Gon must have chugged down at least 20 years of his life at his peak just to make sure he can beat the Cat royal. Yes obviously the Cat royal is still much, much more powerful than him, but presumably the fight started out with Gon figuring he at least had a shot at winning. At the very early chapters of HXH, one of the Hunter was saying there's a very serious price you pay for going 100% of your potential and HXH takes itself pretty seriously here. This isn't something gimmicky like gear 3 or 'need a new eye implant' deal. You're talking about probably one step below killing off the main character of the story, but that's what's needed to defeat the Cat royal.
I noticed that the Cat finally took clothing damage which is probably there to prove that he is indeed a guy. That said I don't think the Cat is going to die, because if he did there is no one left that can fight the Butterfly royal. I'm guessing what's going to happen is that Gon and Killua will disagree on what to do, that is either save humanity by letting the Cat live, or kill him for revenge and that'd be the end of their friendship as been alluded to a long time ago.
On another note, I think HXH has villians that are basically more likeable than the heroes, at least compared to Gon anyway. I'm not a fan of this 'OMG everyone has a sad story and they're just misunderstood", but HXH isn't like that. The Hunters and the Royals have fairly irreconciable viewpoints, especially since the Cat was betrayed by another royal, but he still died with no regrets because it's pretty clear he exists to die to anything that can potentially threaten Merumu. Given that Gon can't use his power mode ever again, it'd appear there is nobody that can possibly defeat Merumu now (and probably not even a Royal, period), but then I don't think it was ever possible to defeat Merumu in the first place. Of course it is clear Merumu is aware that one of the Royals may be a traitor, but I think it'd be kind of anticlimatic if he just executed the triator Royal (since he is clearly stronger than all 3 Royals put together already), and it should be a Royal vs Royal since so far all the battles against Royals have been a lopsided win for the Royal except for the last one, and clearly there was no way a human can beat a Royal without resorting to suicide attacks, so I think we're overdue to see two Royal-power level characters fight it out.
I noticed that the Cat finally took clothing damage which is probably there to prove that he is indeed a guy. That said I don't think the Cat is going to die, because if he did there is no one left that can fight the Butterfly royal. I'm guessing what's going to happen is that Gon and Killua will disagree on what to do, that is either save humanity by letting the Cat live, or kill him for revenge and that'd be the end of their friendship as been alluded to a long time ago.
On another note, I think HXH has villians that are basically more likeable than the heroes, at least compared to Gon anyway. I'm not a fan of this 'OMG everyone has a sad story and they're just misunderstood", but HXH isn't like that. The Hunters and the Royals have fairly irreconciable viewpoints, especially since the Cat was betrayed by another royal, but he still died with no regrets because it's pretty clear he exists to die to anything that can potentially threaten Merumu. Given that Gon can't use his power mode ever again, it'd appear there is nobody that can possibly defeat Merumu now (and probably not even a Royal, period), but then I don't think it was ever possible to defeat Merumu in the first place. Of course it is clear Merumu is aware that one of the Royals may be a traitor, but I think it'd be kind of anticlimatic if he just executed the triator Royal (since he is clearly stronger than all 3 Royals put together already), and it should be a Royal vs Royal since so far all the battles against Royals have been a lopsided win for the Royal except for the last one, and clearly there was no way a human can beat a Royal without resorting to suicide attacks, so I think we're overdue to see two Royal-power level characters fight it out.
