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."

Lucky. They'd been too late. "You won't," her breath was painful, "need them anymore, I guess. Since he's not..."

Machi blinked, unable to figure out what she was talking about. "You're not one to talk negatively," were the words she finally settled on. "Did you go somewhere during the night? Or find yourself sleepwalking?"

A sudden possibility occurred to Rein, but she didn't dare think any more of it until she was absolutely sure. She'd hate to get her hopes up and have it shatter to pieces, but she just had to be right. Fumbling with her pockets, she pulled out the flashy, sparkly, pink phone that Shalnark had given to her. She turned it on, and fell back into the chair. The phone dropped to the ground as she held a hand to her face just to keep from crying.

It was the same day, the same morning again. She had another chance to save them all.

But how? Time turned back its black hands for her, but how? Rein hadn't done anything special, but it must have been her. She was the only one who had the phone she wasn't supposed to have yet, the injuries that came from something in the future, and the horrible, horrible memories she never wanted to experience again.

It came to her in an epiphany what Lucky had said; Specialist abilities could work with time.

The smell of burnt pancakes still lingered as none of them asked her what was going on, or where she'd sustained such injuries. They would ask, but her eyes were red and black and exhausted; they could wait.

"Alright, who's the arsonist?" The owner of the gruff tone came heavily down the hall, drying his damp hair with a towel around his broad shoulders. Never had he ever looked so wonderfully present and intact.

Rein's breath hitched, and joyous tears almost sprung to her vision. "Ph-Phinks!"

"Yeah?" He yawned and scratched at his head, his blond hair still neatly pulled back despite just having emerged from the shower. Phinks cracked an eye open. "What do you wa-woah!"

She stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around his middle before he could react, hugging him tightly. "You're okay," she breathed slowly. "You're okay."

He peered down with something akin to suspicion, and let the towel drop from his shoulders as he tried to pry her off gently. "Yeah," he repeated. "Are you okay?"

"Just... a bad dream."

"Okay," he said, still questioning her unrelenting hold. "Is this going to become a habit?"

"No," said Rein, and quieted before hugging him tighter. "No."

*     *     *

It wasn't just a bad dream, no matter how numbly she was stumbling through all this. Nightmares did not bleed.

As she ate breakfast for the second time, she desperately tried to remember where the mountain they'd fought on was, but she couldn't. The trek had been hours long, and the details fuzzy. She'd been so focused, so worried she would be too late to say goodbye. (And she had been. She'd been too late to help him, the one person who'd made her feel better. Too late to help everyone else too... stars.)

It meant even though she had another chance, she would only have the same time frame to accomplish it. She couldn't go early. If she didn't know the way there, she couldn't do anything, and Shalnark wasn't due to come until later. Even if she or another of the Spiders was able to call him, she doubted whether he would hurry himself no matter how much she screamed at him to do so. He went his own pace.

There was so much she couldn't do. In comparison, what could she do? If this was truly her Specialist ability, she had absolutely no idea how she was controlling it, and no clue as to whether this was truly a retry at the events or if the day had been copied and pasted. There were endless possibilities, and none of them made any sense. She was used to time moving forward, not resetting. In this circumstance, what were her options?

The enemy numbers had been too many, after too great a loss on their part. Even the experienced Spiders hadn't been able to come back unscathed as they usually did. Her eyesight started to swim, and she had to shake her head to get rid of it. This time around, she would have to keep it from happening, no matter what.

Even through Rein was expecting the call from Lucky, and even though she'd been standing by bouncing her knees anxiously to pick up the call as fast as possible, when it rang it was Machi who reached it first.

"Where are you?" she demanded before putting it on speaker.

"I don't know!"

While Lucky was speaking about how he'd escaped and how much longer he could keep it up, Rein raced around the lodge gathering local geography books and maps of the area that had been used before to mark the fastest route. She cleared the table of everything else, snatching Killua's plate out of his hands before he could protest and doing the same to the others. The table needed room for Shalnark's call-tracking equipment later, so she would set everything she could now.

She panted lightly, vigorously searching for any point she'd missed before allowing herself to sit back down and listen to the call. Stars, just hearing his voice, alive, was a sweet feeling. It was meaningless, though. Every second wasted was one step closer to the life or death situation Rein would have to adjust.

"Hide well," Machi was saying, her tone firm. "Wade through water if they're using dogs, but avoid it if you can. When you were taken, you had bandages in place of a shirt. Don't hide in a river and get hypothermia."

"At ease, my-"

"Yes, yes, you're a peasant and Machi is your girlfriend or something," Rein rushed, hurrying to set aside the casual conversation. She peered out the windows, urging Shalnark to arrive faster.

There was a pause, not unlike the one from before. Lucky spoke slowly. "Why am I on speaker, and where did you hear that?"

Rein had already raced out, blindly shouting for Shalnark to hurry up. Her actions were driven in a numb craze, determined in its goal but not thought out. It was something riding on her emotions only, and one could not press her about it. After all, she'd gone through so much. Yet to the eyes of the others, Rein was running about like a lunatic for reasons unknown, shouting for someone who was not there—as far as they knew, that is.

"She's not here anymore," Machi informed him.

"Where did she hear that?" One could swore he'd sputtered. "Was she spying during Aiai?"

"Why. What happen in Aiai," Feitan asked, tone flat.

"Oh no, it's you." Lucky sounded genuine. "It was just a reference to a certain... I'm not hitting on her, I swear, if anything, Red was the one who did it indirectly so if you're going to get mad, go to her and not me."

Feitan was unamused. "Why get mad?"

There was yet another quiet. "So hypothetically speaking, you're okay with relationships while training?"

A scowl, as if he didn't know what else to do. "I didn't say-"

"Landmarks?" Machi butted in to get them off the topic, her voice raised a notch. "Are there landmarks where you are?"

The rustle of fabric, like he was shrugging. "Mountain? Forest? There's a tree-" A sudden shout came from him, and the sound of crashing through wood and the phone evidently getting knocked about came deafening through the speaker before it rolled to a standstill. It was far too quiet for them to be at ease. Before, they'd been able to hear Lucky's shallow breaths, and Machi could even pick out his heartbeats with her keen hearing. Now, there was nothing, no sign of life.

They called for his name, but there was no response.

Machi grit her teeth at the silence the phone returned to her. Lucky was one to pull through. Because while he claimed his aura hated his guts, she had thought otherwise. It had never shown much ill intent towards him, just the circumstances around him. If any amateur could cling onto life until help arrived, she honestly thought it would be him with no bias.

Rein had already brought out the maps, so with nothing to do, they sat there.

The entrance to the lodge slammed open, shaking the thick walls as Rein dashed inside, pulling a disheveled Shalnark behind her. Her breath short, she pushed him onto the sofa and tore his bag off his person, setting it on the table and telling him to do his job.

"Wait, stop, hold on," Shalnark tried to interrupt. He rubbed at his wrist, reddening intents making themselves evident on his skin where Rein had gripped him too violently.

"Track Lucky's phone, now," she rushed. "The line is connected, just find where the call is coming from!"

"Whoa," he said, holding his hands out between Rein and himself. "There's no need to shout, just slow down and explain."

"Hurry!" she screamed, voice hoarse. Rein bent over and allowed herself to gulp in a breath, her hair swinging limply over her face. "Stars, Shalnark. Please, we don't have time." She hit the arm of the sofa with a tightened fist, paling. "Please, or Lucky... and even Phinks, they'll... they'll-!" Her strength slowly left her as her legs gave in, dropping her slack figure to the ground. Rein brought her hands to her face, and they trembled. There was a dried bloodstain on the back of her hands, newly cracking as she sat there and begged. A whisper, "I can't do this again."

Without a word, Shalnark complied and took his bag. "Does his life depend on it?"

The girl unresponsive, Machi answered for her. "Time is of the essence."

Pulling out his equipment, he gave a silent nod and got to work.

*     *     *

Rein was looking extraordinarily pale, all warm colors drained from her face and leaving her with an icy exterior. Still, she picked herself up and followed the rest of them with eyes devoid of expression—"I'm fine," she'd snapped, her gaze nowhere but ahead as she forced them to move through the brush to where Lucky was as quickly as possible. "Just keep running."—and headed their group, keeping a tight hold on Phinks' sleeve the entire time, her grip turning iron when he tried to remove it.

"Come on," she urged, lips chapped and dry. "We're almost there."

A delighted relief came to her when they came across a clearing, and Lucky stumbled into it. She could see his chest heaving as he whipped back, eyes peeled open in fear at his pursuer. He started to take another bound when his eyes caught on them, stepping back in alarm before recognizing their faces.

Her gait doubled as she raced on ahead, pushing aside branches and thorns that scraped exposed skin. He was so close. At this rate they would get there in under a minute-

Gunshots came, and blood splurted forward with it.

She seized up.

Even more rang through the air, causing small yelps and groans with each and every one before one got Lucky straight through the heart. Yet still more came, piercing through his chest and skull just to confirm his death.

Nothing had changed.

Rein hadn't noticed her grip on Phinks had loosened until his receding back was ahead of her, charging forward and finishing off Lucky's attacker. With his determined and challenging expression twisted into a grimacing sneer, he disappeared from her vision.

Dual curses came from Feitan and Machi as they surged on ahead as well, and one by one, they all left her. She reached out in a dazed manner as her eyesight failed her and shook, blurring their figures.

Her pupils contracted when she felt a breath of air behind her. Her reflexes felt as strong as ever and her legs pushed her away from her position just as two swords came down. They would have impaled her had she not escaped.

"You again," were her first words.

A long blade ignored her and sliced, leaving a long gash up her skirt.

Her emotions suddenly catching up to her, Rein was embalmed in a fueled rage as she clamped down her teeth at the sting it left and retreated for higher ground, where she could take him on. She enhanced her En by only an arm's width, saving her energy for the concentration on conjuring the flint she needed. She only dodged as soon as she felt a sword pierce her En circle, trying not to break the steady flow of Nen to her hands.

Flint and steel would make a spark, and she could send him up in flames like last time.

As soon as she'd made a large enough piece, she flipped around and flung it his way. The two materials clashed perfectly and she ignited the flame, darting past him and back towards the clearing where the others were. She could not waste time here, not here.

Her tattered skirt tripped her up, tangling weighted cloth amid her knees hitting them and causing her, at the absolute worst of times, to fall.

Biting back her cries, she tumbled down the hillside, thrown against sharp rocks and tearing branches. She tried to open her eyes to see anyone, but with a splitting snap in her skull, her vision rolled useless as she came to a rest at the boulder near the foot of the hill.

*     *     *

When Rein finally awoke, the first thing she saw was a hand, unusually still with blood wiped away in the grass below it.

She scrambled back and felt the light leave her very soul. No. She reached out once more, towards Phinks' face with his eyes just barely open, a strange sort of nostalgic on such a man. His skin was cold.

A sudden pain pounded at the sides on her head, and she gripped at her hair in a grimace. She willed her legs to move, though her vision became clouded with black swirls as soon as she stood up. She pushed through, staggering forward with a hand on the neighboring trees for support. His body had been so much more frigid than last time. It meant more time had passed, and that in turn meant... She didn't want to think. Don't think.

Finally, she arrived at the clearing. The view was too horrifying to take in, but her eyes went wide and unblinking as the details flooded her brain and etched themselves into her memory forever. It hurt, stars, it hurt.

Everything—the body count, the injuries inflicted, the figures of those still somehow pushing through their pain and lurching forward like a rag doll—was so much worse.

It came again, the thoughts hammering into her skull over and over with deafening blows. She couldn't hold back a cry as the overhanging pain thrusted itself through her brain, as if someone was taking a nail and trying to split her right open. The back of her throat became gargled as her shins hit the ground. 

Her second chance to try to save them and she'd failed.

*      *      *

Rein woke up with a start, the smell of something burning drifting in the air.

T I M E L O O P.

Now we know what Rein's Specialist ability is! Her Conjurer ability will come up in a bit when she can think more rationally about things, but stay tuned, and I hope you enjoyed.

(I'm putting her through so much rn I feel bad)

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