Trying to move on from the monkey Yokai, Nova got an idea. She reeks, but smell was just one of her senses. If Nova couldn't find Beil with sight, hearing, or smell, she'd just have to use her new sense.
Climbing back up the tree and reaching her now very long body over to the house a few feet away, she settled on the edge of the roof and decided to meditate. If she could stretch her energy tendrils far enough she might be able to sense his distinct energy signature, especially when she had already done it once.
Granted, though it was an accident, she had still learned what he felt like. If her spirit energy was like liquid that acted like fire with a bit of electricity, Beil's had a cooling sensation like mint. Wait no, it was like that intense effect that vapo rub had when one breaths it in or swallows it, like the drinkable medicine kind, and the abrasive side to it was a strangly rough texture. The closest thing she could think of to compare it to was old tarmac when she fell off her bike and scraped her knees. His energy was the definition of conflicting extremes. Then again, so was hers. Was everybody's like that?
Shaking her head to get to the task at hand, Nova cleared her mind, as difficult as that was. She had to fight herself for a few minutes, pretending that nothing was wrong and she was just resting next to him before they left to go somewhere, before she finally felt her mind ease into her meditative state.
Her inner self, though she could not see it, was a little different today. Emilia was a part of her like always, but right now it was much more pronounced. Her eyes had darkened, her hair had shifted into a fluffier lighter color, and Novas unwavering strength felt like an afterthought.
Wringing her hands, she approached her nearly empty energy reserves and cursed her luck. Why had a strange new power reared its head at the most inopportune time, and on top of that, drained her core? Shouldn't she have full control over this shit at this point? It was like she couldn't tell she was low until she could no longer maintain her human form and then poof, snake. No warning. Seriously, why?
She had already been questioning if she should look into her forms and everyone's reaction toward her development, but now she was just fed up with how rapidly her body kept changing on her. It had just become this big inconvenient distraction from practically anything she really reached for lately.
Refocusing even with all the bullshit, because Beil was much more important to Nova than yet another curveball, she centered herself and tried her best to think of a way to stretch her remaining energy far enough to reach all the way across the city. Unlikely, but as long as she was careful not use all of it so that she could still see and move, she'd be okay.
Oh, perfect, she just thought of something. She didn't necessarily have to stretch out thick tendrils of energy, maybe they could be thin strands, like a spider's web? Was that enough to sense anyone?
She tested her theory by extending one small thread down to the streets below and immediately picked up on whomever it touched, a shallow energy with a tang to it, like cinnamon candy. Odd.
Her strand of energy was thin enough that it passed over the Yokai undetected. That's good, she wouldn't draw attention to herself if she used them.
Attempting this on a larger scale was actually much more difficult than she had hoped. Each strand took individual concentration to move independently, and each new creature she grazed by before moving on had their own energy signatures. Some were sharp, bitter, and abrasive, others were soft, bright, warm, inviting. Some were, quite honestly, disgusting and she wished she never found them. And then there were a few that tempted her to linger, to find out just who they really belonged to.
Nova shook her head. It was like a television flicking rapidly through hundreds of channels, noisy and disorienting, and she was unable to really locate the one channel she wanted. She was getting overwhelmed and exhausted after only a few minutes.
Oh.
Flinching a bit in surprise, she retracted most of her web of energy after finding a faint trace of him, like hearing a familiar tune that she almost skipped over in her haste. She refocused her now aching head and dwindling energy in that general direction and found him again after a few more attempts, settling the strand on him like a string tied to his leg, she slowly had the rest of the web combine with it to built a sort of metaphysical rope of energy.
At this point Beil could sense that something had touched him and he looked down. Where her energy held, a slight blue ring could be found on his scales, as if they had been dyed with light. He raised an eyebrow before testing it with his own energy, and sighed.
Meanwhile, Nova was booking it over to him with a much lighter mindset, her body flicking around objects at breakneck speed like a shoelace hanging out of a car window. Her relief that she had been successful in finding him urged her forward blindly and she failed to notice the shadows of several figures ducking out of sight each time she made it past their hiding spots.
Rounding the corner, she spotted him sitting calmly by himself on a bench, watching her approach as if he had been waiting for her. A part of her felt uneasiness with the expression on his face, but the rest of her was just happy to be reunited.
Before she could say anything, however, her energy which she had forgotten to keep track of dipped below what she needed to stay stable and her vision blurred just as she was about to reach the edge of the grass where the bench sat. The reaching strands snapped like so many uncooked pasta noodles and faided away.
As her body started writhing in pain, which is what happened last time before she became unresponsive and immobile while Beil had been hunting, this time she tried to pull the energy back to keep herself conscious. Unfortunately for her it failed to do so, or at least what made it back was just not enough.
"Oh, Nova," came a deep, disappointed voice, before the darkness settled in and it grew quiet.
An undeterminable amount of time later, Nova blinked awake and moaned in pain. Every inch of her ached miserably, including her eyes, lungs, and the skin under her scaling, and a strange nausea as well as the painfully bright light in the room that smelled like antiseptic made her twist herself up tightly in a ball and bury her head in the center to hide from it all.
Hearing a door open, Nova didn't react. It was hard to think at the moment, or even breath, but her instincts did make her taste the air. It wasn't Beil. She fell back asleep.
She woke up some time later and again tested the air. Nothing. This time though there was a lot of screaming outside of her room, and as she heard Beil's voice she raised her head. A nurse she didn't expect to be there because she couldn't smell him looked up from his clipboard and smiled politely. Nova froze in surprise.
"It's good to see you awake. Sorry for the noise, some Itsumade claims that he's your friend and has been causing us quite a problem since we brought you in here--"
That was all she needed to hear. He kept talking but she was already unraveling and extending herself down to the cold white tile. In passing she appreciated that this world had a hospital of some kind, but not that they decided for her that Beil wasn't welcome.
Pushing herself along, the nurse finally noticed what she was about to do and moved to block the door.
"For your safety, you should stay in here for the time being. There's no telling what he wants from you, but don't worry, we've called security."
That was certainly something to worry about.
"I can handle him, please move," she said and arched her neck to look a little more stable. She was still a little woozy, but she didn't exactly care. If they got to Beil first, she didn't want to think of what could happen.
When she spoke the nurse's eyes got wide and he faltered, giving her enough time to push past him.
"No, wait," he tried but she had already gripped the handle with her tail and yanked it down, opening the door to the following scene that she would never forget and would forever make her blood feel cold.
Beil was standing in the center of six hospital staff, Yokai who all had strange variations of scrubs on. That was the first thing she noticed anyway, seeing as they were blocking her view, but when she pushed past the smallest one and got the full sight of Beil, her heart dropped.
He was brutally damaged, bruises all up and down his legs and face, missing wing feathers and blood coating several of them, a gash and a puncture wound in his tail, and what looked like a burn mark on his torso, not to mention the rather large patchs of missing scales.
Adrenaline rushed through her as she booked it to his side, holding herself back to keep from touching him. When he saw her his good eye lit up so sweetly, as if he wasn't in pain, and her eyes stung with tears.
"Oh my God, are you okay? Do you need to lie down? Hey back up, get away from him," she snapped curtly at the nurses and doctors still hovering over them and trying to stop her, and a couple recoiled, but most must have been used to this kind of reaction and simply stood aside but at the ready. She had no time for them, as long as they let her tend to him everything would be fine.
Now was not the time to think about who did this to him, she immediately dived head first into herself with perplexing ease compared to... whenever the last time she was awake was. When she got there Beil's subconscious self was sitting on the 'ground' and silent tears were falling from his face that was obscured by his red curls. He was holding his arm on the side where the wing was the most banged up and the pants on his legs were shredded.
"What the hell happened to you," she asked in passing and pressed her hand on the first gash in the darkness she could reach. If she could heal herself maybe she could heal others. As she tested this, Inner Beil raised his head and watched her with a very strange look on his face. He stood up and started walking over to her, and thinking nothing of it Nova kept trying until just a tiny piece of the wound started to fasten itself shut.
It was a very slow process compared to when she did it in her own body. Maybe his energy was fighting hers a little?
Before she could finish that thought process, a pair of arms wrapped around her shoulders from behind and a head rested on the back of her neck. Nova tensed in surprise, a strange new feeling set her skin on fire where his body touched hers, and her heart beats faster, but what he said next threw some water on the fire.
"I am so grateful that you are okay," his voice mumbled, tickling her back, "but you need to leave."
Trying not to cry, Nova shook her head and stubbornly kept working silently with one hand as the other rhythmically rubbed his arms that rested under her chin to comfort him, and herself.
"I'll be just fine. Please," he tried again. Nova licked her dry lips and tried to stay calm.
"How did this happen? Why are we in a hospital if they aren't going to help you?"
"That is what they are trying to do, but until I saw you I was not going to let them. I needed to know that you were okay."
"Of course I'm okay! I only passed out, what you have going on is so much worse, what are you talking about?"
She felt him shake his head.
"Nova, you almost died, and it was not from a lack of spirit energy. Now that your soul has stabilized within your body, a lack of spirit energy will only make you lose consciousness."
"Then how did I almost die when you're the one who looks like you were put through a meat grinder?"
"I promise to tell you every detail once we are cleared from this place in good health. Until then, please stop trying to heal me, you still need to rest," he said and let go of her.
The next second a very strange sensation, starting with a light pushing like a gust of wind and becoming more of a demanding pressure, lifted her feet out from under her and forced her inner self to fly backwards just out of range of his mind. She watched as his silhouette grew too small to see as she fought to go back in, but it was as if a wall was being built up to block her. Oddly enough, she felt like she could break it down if she really wanted to, but what would that do to him? Would that hurt him more? She sighed and pulled herself away.
Opening her eyes, she saw that his wounds weren't much better, and any noticeable improvement was only on the corner of one of the gashes which had shortened a bit.
Sighing, Nova looked up into his eyes... eye, which held both pain and joy, and eased off of him.
"He is going to be treated for his wounds, right," she asked the crowd, most of which nodded, the rest just looked very confused, like she was stating the obvious.
"Of course, this facility is open to all Yokai. Any form of discrimination goes against our code of honor."
Nova nodded. Now was not the time to ask what the heck that nurse in the first room had meant and why they were trying to keep her away, but if she was honest with herself, she was far too exhausted to care.
Giving one last good look at him and smiling as best as a snake can, she allowed herself to be escorted back to the bed while Beil went to his own room with very little urging now. She watched all the way until his messed up tail slid into the room and the door shut behind him before she finished entering hers. The nurse calmly advised her to climb back up and she did so with a bit more effort than she should have needed, feeling drowsy almost immediately after getting her body into a comfortable position.
Her questions would have to wait until she was coherent enough to understand the answers. She watched the door until sleep pulled her softly away.