Itsy Bitsy Spider

35. Departure!

DAICHI WO FUMISHIMETE〜

Everything was flowing rather uneventfully, and she liked that. She really did. Everyday was like a shadow of the one before, and this kind of repeated routine helped her to get back on track. She woke up, went through the day, and slept, not much more to it. During the days at Yorknew, her brain had worked over time, numbing, putting up a front, plotting. But here, surrounded by trees lifetimes older than her, that raging river in her mind became more a trickling stream. With her mind silent, she tried to stay like that as much as she could.

The memory still hurt a bit, but not as much as before.

After all that happened, Rein just needed time to exist in quiet, and the Spiders understood that, to a degree. They left her alone when she needed to be, letting her rest up until the Exam. While they explored the island and went on small little missions, she stayed behind, collecting the perfect skipping stones and keeping the best ones in her pocket. The new skirt, that Machi had sewn for her as soon as they'd entered the game, held even deeper pockets than the one she'd lost. She was a bit more careful with her rock selection now, keeping only the best stored in her pockets so she would have more room for future ones. Not one of them came close to being her lucky rock, but she could manage.

Rein came to a stop in the middle of the forest, and tilted up her head to the clouds above, barely peeking through the canopy. Light cascaded down and seeped into the pores of her skin to the tips of her hair, almost an embrace. A kiss goodbye.

She would leave the game soon along with the others, but while the rest would head to try to find Greed Island by themselves to prove Shalnark's theory about the game existing in real life, she'd be making her way for the Hunter Exam.

She hadn't prepared, exactly. She probably should've, but it was too late to start now. After gathering enough leave cards, they were all departing today, and a final, brisk walk along the edge of the leering precipice would be her last for a while.

The waves crashed onto the rough, sponge-like boulders below, breaking into a million pieces and repeating the process over and over again. Salty air filled her lungs as she took a step back to enjoy the view and just... be. Her life would get very loud, noisy, and complicated soon, so she would enjoy this best she could.

As soon as she was about to leave, her eyes caught on a tree. A tree with a leg of lavender cloth dangling from it, and as she drew closer she considered surprising him, but when she could see, it was clear the person in the tree was... eating the tree leaves. Plucking them off along with their twigs and shoving them in his mouth, whole. Crunching bark and everything.

Brown eyes locked with emerald.

Frozen silence.

"Goodbye," she stated, turning on her heel.

"Wait, no, Rein, come back!" Shalnark called through a mouth of prickly green, frantic to explain. "This is a more toxic genus of Eucalyptus, rarely found anywhere in the world, I was just testing and enhancing my immunity—"

"You're trying to turn that tree into salad, why are you so weird?!"

"Feitan has jumped into literal lava before and you're judging me for training my immune system? Harsh."

"I... touché. But I'm still leaving now. I have to get ready for the Exam."

"Wait, no, I actually have something for you, I'm serious!" Shalnark said, leaning and waving for her to come back his way. He swung down, hanging from the tree branch by his legs as he thrifted through his pocket. "Here. I got it when I went into the nearby town."