That was strange. Very strange. One show passed into the next and I wasn’t sure just what was going on… I mean, I didn’t notice it at first, he has other friends. He could have stopped by someone else’s place.

‘Could they have ‘not’ listened to me after all?’ That thought did occur to me, that maybe the ones who hit him, got together a group and ambushed him? My brow furrowed, ‘If they did that…’ I paused the show right as the boorish butch girl was getting ready to punch the computer nerd… because what’s a trash anime without dramatic overreactions?

I began to tap my foot, then checked the time on my phone. ‘School ended two hours ago…’ I thought while I read off the time. Jin was generally the sort of boy you could almost, if not quite, set your watch by. He always left for school early, and even if he dallied a little bit on his way home, he ‘generally’ didn’t delay except at the end of the school week.

And today was a Thursday.

So I did the only logical thing, I shifted back to my natural state to cast a more powerful spell. A swapper’s body isn’t that different from that of a human, at least in its basic body plan. Like if all a human saw of us was our shadow, they might think they were looking at a slightly ‘off’ human’s outline.

Basic, low level magic didn’t require any transformation or ‘swapping’ of my form, but search magic was different, there’s so much data in the world at any given time that without our natural biology to filter it, we just can’t use the spell.

[H’craes r’etemarap Jinn] I spoke the spell aloud to increase its potency, just in case, and a white dot formed in the air above my outstretched palm, it pulsed, then exploded like a star going supernova, the billions of little photons spreading out from my palm and touching everything as they dispersed, passing through objects and feeding an endless stream of images into my brain all at once, which I was rapidly filtering through. I didn’t really like to use a spell like this.

Point in fact… I hated it.

I hated it because you can see just… all the things, including things you don’t want to. I winced as points of light passed through occupied bathrooms and busy bedrooms in surrounding apartments. “And I had the nerve to call Jin a hentai.” I muttered under my breath as more images flowed into my head, the spell was beyond the apartments now, and the endless points of light that were so minute that it was no more than starlight on a cloudy night to human eyes, continued to spread out over streets and into other buildings, offices and places of employment.

The bullyboys were sitting on the old bench where I met them before… they were not nearly so cocky as before, if anything, they were quite sullen. ‘Strange for them to be there at an hour like this… just doing what… nothing?’ I wondered about that, but there was no time to think on it. At least I could safely rule them out. I was now well outside the reach of the neighborhood, and there was no sign of him.

‘It isn’t any of your business.’ I told myself, but I didn’t cancel the spell.

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The search went on.

And then… I found him.

And I felt stupid.

‘The hospital… there he is, sitting next to a bed, and yes, there’s his mother…’ She didn’t look good. There was a tube in her throat, an intravenous drip in her arm, her eyes were closed, and she even had tubes in her nose. None of those were desirable as far as I knew.

I didn’t know a lot about human sickness, and why would I? Human viruses and bacteria don’t impact me. But I knew those weren’t good things. I’ve never heard someone say, ‘My health is great, I’m actually getting some tubes shoved down my throat this weekend.’ So I figured it was pretty much the opposite of a good sign.

I canceled the spell. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about her being sick. Healing magic isn’t something I know anything about. My skills are far more… visceral.

That didn’t mean I was completely helpless.

I reclaimed my human guise, hit the shower, and changed into a plaid skirt and white button down shirt with some flat shoes. I even took the time to take a brush to my fox-fur colored hair and straighten it out before giving it one tie in the back close to my head.

Search magic over an area that large was… not inconsiderable, especially when searching for an individual target, so I did still have to wait a few minutes to cast another spell, or rather, to make sure I could cast it twice.

[t’ropelet f’les l’atipsoh] and then… I was gone. It was dark out when I reappeared on the roof of the hospital, and I rolled my eyes at my absurdity. ‘Of course it put you on the roof, it was the place closest to the target you pictured…’ The winds were blowing high and my skirt danced around me as my hair was lifted up from my back, and I went to the edge to peer down to the bottom. There was nobody around, at least. So… I added some wings to my back, and hopped off. I knew well enough how to make ones that would arrest my descent, that was actually one of the first things I did when I picked Earth as my vacation site.

Swappers aren’t the most popular race in the Universe, and you never know when you’ll have to get gone fast, or how. So I made sure I knew all sorts of shapeshifting techniques to adapt to a wide variety of situations.

I landed out of view, dropped down to one knee and drew the faux wings back into my body, then walked around the front entrance. The lights inside were on and flickered a little when the glass double doors opened. Like most hospitals, this one had a lot of seating in the front area, halls diverged in every direction. A bored, sleepy receptionist in white sat behind a curved wooden desk that had a series of computer monitors evenly spaced along it… but hers was the only one occupied.

I approached the woman, she had curly hair and a world weary expression while she worked at her computer, and didn’t look up when I came near. “Hi, I’m here to see Miss Toriyama, can you tell me what room she’s in?” I asked as cheerily as I could.

She looked up from her computer screen for a moment and huffed, “Visiting hours are over.”

“But-” I started to ask.

“Visiting hours are over. You can return tomorrow morning at nine. Thank you.” She said, then pretended I didn’t exist.

I knew these types. We have them at the agency. Bureaucrats don’t change much from one world to the next, I guess.

“That’s fine, I’ll be happy to come back tomorrow, but could you tell me what room I’d need to go see, so I don’t have to waste your time first thing in the morning?” I batted my eyelashes at her, and at the prospect of not having me come see her twice, she seemed to waver.

“Room nine-zero-one.” She answered after a moment’s look, and I turned around to walk away.

But I never reached the exit. I just waited until I was sure I wasn’t going to be seen doing what I did next.