Itsy Bitsy Spider

61. Second Chance

Tears streamed down her face as she gripped her blanket.

She turned her head. The room at the lodge was so sunlit she almost forgot everything that had just happened. But there was the nick on her ear, the feeling of Phinks' limp body still on her palms. The painful reality was that it had happened, something she foolishly believed never would.

She forced herself to stand, and willed her tired hand to drop lifelessly onto the handle. Take your time but don't isolate yourself, that was what Lucky would probably tell her. She didn't know how she'd gotten back here, but she sincerely hoped there was someone left after all that. Because driving away isolation without anyone else around; that was kind of impossible, wasn't it? She started to sway, and gripped the door frame tightly with her other hand to steady herself.

Oh stars, she was about to break down all over again.

She clamped down on her tongue. Rein opened the door just in time to see a figure rush past, her pink hair in a knotted bird's nest. "I..." Rein could see her back rise in a slightly heavier breath, "...smelled smoke. Is Lucky...?"

Rein tried to keep her voice from quivering. "Machi?" She took a tentative step from her room for a closer look. "You're so... your hands. Weren't they broken?" Broken and mangled and bruised and useless-

Machi straightened, surprised to see her there behind her. She cleared her throat and brought her composure back to normal. "No," she said simply, "I haven't injured my hands in years." She brought up her eyes and was suddenly taken back. "Rein, what happened to you? You look like you've been in a fight."

Rein couldn't answer her as Machi ran her eyes over her torn clothes and various injuries. Her blue eyes stalled on her bloodied hand, but all Rein had to do was loosely shake her head to let her know she was fine, that it was foreign blood.

"Sit," Machi said, and had to take her wrist to guide her to the sofa area.

The anomalies were stacking up in Rein's head, but she still tried to give a weak argument. After everything that happened, they couldn't afford to sit around and tend to minor injuries. But those words fell limp on her tongue when she was pulled near the kitchen and found the exact same sight from that morning.

Kalluto and Zushi standing with a smoldering pan, now drenched in milk. Gon heading around the vast room, trying to open up all the windows to get fresh air flowing in. Her gazes slowly met each of theirs, the relief of seeing them alive almost blinding her and bringing her to her knees.

"Rein, you okay?" Kalluto asked hesitantly.

"W-what?"

"There's blood running down your face," Gon pointed out, concerned.

Her hands flew to the area and came back sticky. Now thinking, blood had been trickling through the crevices in her ear and down the side of her face for a while now. She'd never had the time to take it all in.

Rein was still deprived of feeling as Machi forced her to sit and brushed her hair out of the way to inspect the gash on her ear. She pulled out ointment and a simple bandage, and held it between her lips while she cleaned it.

"You..." Her head was spinning, and she didn't know what to say. "...have a lot more supplies now. You didn't carry stuff like the little sticking band-aids before."

Machi only shrugged. Finished with her cleaning, she unpeeled the packaging of the plaster. "Lucky uses them a lot because he's always getting hurt. I usually end up taking care of his wounds." She adhered it to Rein's injury, wiped the rest of the blood off her face, and pulled back. "It's easier if I have them ready."