Itsy Bitsy Spider

46. Tread On Tea

"Shal!" Rein threw aside the mouth of the tent, eyes widening and slowly coming to soften when she saw him sitting there, blabbering away to Feitan. She let out a shaky breath of relief.

Shal looked her way and grinned at her all the same, even with the pain. "Rein, hey! Could you close the tent flap?"

It took her a bit to respond, but as soon as the words reached her ears, she did exactly as he said. Her fingers lingered on the fabric before she drew in a breath and approached him, lips pulled taut into a too-tight smile. She sat. "It's just an external injury, huh?" she asked, taking a closer look at his knee; the blood, red and seeping into his clothes. After a while, she tilted her head towards his face instead, trying not to let the injury anywhere near her line of sight.

His eyes crinkled, but there was no mistaking the worried way his eyebrows bunched. "I wish I could say that, but there was Nen in that. I could've probably handled a normal arrow, but... hey, Fei, wait!"

Feitan, who Rein had hardly noticed, stood up and went out. He'd already heard this spiel once, and once was enough. "I'm fast," he assured as the fabric fell back into place. "I won't be hit."

The shine in his green eyes dimmed as Fei left a single reassurance that wasn't actual affirmation. He clenched the pants on his uninjured leg, knuckles turning white as he let out a whisper of: "Be careful."

This reminded Rein of a similar instance not to long ago, and she didn't like this déjà vu feeling crawling up her throat, not a bit. Someone leaving, with a warning to be careful, a word of caution that had been futile.

"Well, it's Fei," Shalnark reasoned, the previous expression on his face gone. "He can handle it, no doubt."

She glanced back, at him, his smile, and the dripping, dripping red. Seeping, falling. Her hands dug around in her pocket, searching once again for something old. "We sensed something happened, so I came here and Kalluto went off to find Machi. They'll be he-"

"Brilliant!" he said, and leaned in, as if wanting something else. "Tell me how exactly you knew there was something amiss. Exactly."

Rein tried, and ultimately came up with, "It was just weird all of a sudden. How do I explain that? A random strand of aura hits us like a butterfly truck, of course something is off."

He sat back with his knowing grin, incredibly pleased before his face twisted into curiosity. "Did you say 'butterfly truck'?"

"Like very subtly being hit by a truck," she attempted.

Shalnark laughed, but recovered quickly, nodding as he did with tears in his eyes. "No, no, really, thanks, that was the last piece," he struggled to breathe, "and now I know my deductions are correct.

"The only worrying point about this Nen-user is that we don't know his identity or his whereabouts. But everything else, I have a pretty good grip on." If Shalnark had glasses, he certainly would have adjusted them at this point. "By the method he used to attack, he's an Emitter. And by the fact that an Emitter used a real arrow instead of aura means that's one of the restrictions: to make the arrow warp, it has to actually physically exist. And while it was successful in adding aura to hurt me further, it wasted too much energy. And all that on my knee, only once. Terrible use. That plus the fact that the method wasn't controlled means that..." He smiled. "He's not someone to worry too much about. He's nothing like before, alright, Rein? We'll be okay."

She merely set her jaw to alert him that she had listened, still stiff. Stars, the red in his knee and-

Taking her hands, he pressed something into her palm. He patted her hand over it, and said simply, "I found it when I went to go look for Uvo."