Itsy Bitsy Spider

9. Crashing Through Time

"Is she coming out of her room?"

"Take a wild stab at it and let's see where that gets you."

"So no." Shalnark sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "No progress whatsoever. Is she alright? We don't know what happened, but judging by how she's acting, its clear whatever this is has impacted her quite badly. Danchou said this might have something to do with Uvo, but on percentage of chance alone, that seems highly unlikely. And," He raised a finger. "No matter how silly this sounds, we also have to consider the possibility that perhaps her behavior is a withdrawal symptom from being separated from her lucky rock."

Machi eyed him, waiting for sound reasoning behind his words. When she got none, she spoke slowly: "There is no 'we' in this. And that rock idea..." She shook her head. "Just no."

A small snicker escaped his lips. "I guess that was a pretty stupid theory." He slid to the floor, leaning back on his hands. "In hindsight, I suppose I was just spitballing."

"Hm," said Machi. Reaching up, she slipped off her fuzzy blue scrunchie, bright bristly hair falling down in a spiky, hardened veil around her face. She swept a few strands out of her eyes so they stuck away, instead of poking out her retinas. In vain, she tried to smooth down the bump at the back of her hair, an eternal compliment of having been in a ponytail for far too long. Giving up, she instead adjusted it so it fell comfortably upon her tracksuit. Satisfied, she lowered her arms into a crossed position.

"What's with the getup?"

With the slightest of shrugs, she said, "Nobunaga and I are going into the city to draw out some person who's got their eye set on capturing us. Orders. I don't understand why we can't just kill them, though."

Shalnark was silent for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Because Uvo."

Her eyes widened a bit at the realization, but her usual lack of expression never left her face. "They might be associated with the chain user?"

"And in turn, might know something about Uvo, meaning we can get information out of them," Shalnark added, nodding. "But this plan. It seems to me like its riding too heavily on the assumption that something negative happened to Uvo. We don't know anything for sure, and Rein is only adding to the confusion." He cocked his head. "Do you think Uvo is okay?"

She pursed her lips. "Maybe."

He waited. "Elaborate?"

"It seems unlikely. He's a strong fighter, but that chain user was able to capture him, right? And I'm sure the bruise Uvo got was from the chain user too, so he must be pretty powerful given that he was able to injure him while his entire Nen was focused on defense and preservation of his body."

He blanked for a moment. "A bruise?"

"Yeah, on his nose. The chain user must have broken it before Uvo used Enhancer abilities to heal it." This time, it was Machi who cocked her head. "Didn't you notice?"

"I..." Shalnark nibbled his lip. He hadn't noticed. Of the Spiders, Machi was one of the most observant, so it would make sense she'd notice the faded remains of a broken nose, no matter how fixed up Uvo had gotten it before they had arrived. Not to mention Machi was always patching the other Spiders up after intense battles as well, so she held an unusually keen eye for this type of thing. Shalnark doubted if any of the others had noticed the bruise. Machi was the only one of them who would have been able to tell Uvo had been hurt. Only Machi was capable. That was just a fact.