Itsy Bitsy Spider

8. Screaming for Isolation

"So in other words, we don't know what happened to Rein," Franklin summarized neatly from his spot on the cement block.

"That... pretty much sums it up, yes." Shalnark scratched at his head. "However, we can take some reasonable guesses and deduce from there." It had taken a while for the Troupe to meet together in the main room after he had highlighted just how serious the situation could be. Rein had come running in, pushed them all aside, and had made a beeline to her floor, to the room reserved for her. Even Phinks hadn't managed to catch her to demand what had happened, as she'd resorted to kicking him in the shins to make him let her go. Her actions, the timing, her words. The entire thing was just too strange for it to be nothing of significance.

"She's crying. She hasn't stopped since she ran in," Shizuku remarked.

"Wrong." Paku continued to polish her pistol, but her eyes were unfocused, dazed. Her hands moved but she was elsewhere. "She stopped, once."

She bit the inside of her lip. She had been startled when Rein had run in, tears streaming. She'd never seen Rein—always full of sweetness, smiles, laughter, childish confusion, innocence, playfulness—she'd never seen that Rein cry before. All she'd wanted to do was to help, to pull Rein into her arms and give her a hug, to see what had happened with her psychometry... but she never got to. She hadn't even been able to talk to her, or even get close to her.

Get away from me!

Her posture remained rigid, but Pakunoda wanted to curl in on herself and never open up. Quickly, she stifled that childish feeling. Forcing her shoulders to lower in an attempt to relax, she allowed herself to put down her pistol. It shone even in the dim light. "She's not allowing me to touch her and check."

"So there's something she doesn't want us to know about." Shalnark brought a hand up to his chin. "Rein is usually a open person. So this event that happened in the last hour was so... traumatizing, or of such a great scale, she wishes to keep secret, or there is something keeping her from sharing it with us."

"A threat?" Shizuku asked.

"No." Feitan entered the room, hands burrowed deep in his pockets. No one could see how they were clenched tight. "If it was a threat, we can silence them easy."

"Ah, Feitan!" Shalnark gave a lighthearted smile. "How's Rein? Have you gotten her to talk?"

"Tch. You make it sound like I'm torturing her." The air in the room suddenly stiffened, and he let out a short sigh. He rolled his eyes. "She's not talking. Kicked me out. Screamed some nonsense and about wanting to be alone."

Nodding slowly, the smile on Shalnark's face drew into a thin line. "So this is where the investigation ends, I suppose."

"Not quite yet." Chrollo leaned forward from his place at the head of the room and clasped his hands together. "Rein comes back crying and refusing to let anyone know of what transpired. Around the same time as her trip, Uvogin should have had his fight."

"Ah, with the chain bastard he kept ranting about!" Shalnark exclaimed, though his cheerful tone seemed a bit strained.

"A chain user... He's either a Manipulator or a Conjurer. Uvogin is a dominant fighter, but in a one-on-one fight, he is most vulnerable to these two categories. The amount of Conjurers who give special powers to the things they create are many. Some of those abilities could render Uvo helpless." The chain user was most likely a Conjurer—that was a safe assumption to make. Yet, if he wasn't, their views on his powers would be skewed by their former delusion, giving the chain user the upper hand. If he was a Manipulator... "And a Manipulator could control Uvo himself."