The night goes by a bit smoothly, maybe it was part of the fact that they didn't have to sleep under a passageway or even in some abandoned building. Even a place so compact was better than being outside in the elements and relying on Yachiru's runes to make them safe.
Though R.E.I, a sentient android, doesn't exactly sleep just needs to stay still in the moonlight for eight to nine hours—Yachiru's design. Though his thoughts were ever going on.
System log: 04:12 AM
All vital systems nominal.
Core temperature stabilizing.
Current task... error...
"I watch. I record. And somewhere in that... I feel. Yachiru said I don't need to be his comfort aid anymore—not since Sera appeared—so what does it mean to be... me?"
The room was quiet
In the bed adjacent to R.E.I, where the other two slept, Seraphine pinned Yachiru by her sheer weight stopping most of the twitching and rolling he did. His fingers twitched as if they wanted to trace a rune but they couldn't finish the motion. His jaw clenched and flexed in tiny spasms, words forming in an out-worldly language he's only been taught to fear. Every few breaths his chest would pull tight—one shallow hitch—before evening out again. The tremors weren't dramatic; they were more like a body still flinching from echoes it couldn't outrun. Seraphine murmured in her sleep. The hum of her sleep shivered up his spine; the warmth, and her weight kept him from unraveling out completely—only for a moment.
Those faint-gold eyes of his flared awake, as he bolted upright. he pushed Seraphine off of him as he scrambled to stand up. His lanky and lithe body heaved as he got used to his surroundings, his body dripped with a cold sweat. A nightmare. the same bleak and macabre nightmare he's been having since his forceful departure. A curse, or maybe a vision, whatever they are, they always end the same way.
In every city there was an enemy; every autonomous enclave convinced itself it was safe as long as its members stayed the same. That logic held only until those groups either split up and traveled solo, seeing familiar faces before those faces change and turn into strangers.
---
In the morning, Yachiru found himself in the small communal bathroom at the end of the hallway in the tavern. The room felt rather small and claustrophobic against the body he hardly recognized. His dim golden eyes stared at his reflection in the mirror. He could see his ashen-white hair, messy, and unkempt in choppy layers that looked as they'd been cut with a blunt blade. They say reflections of mirrors capture a person's soul, something someone has said to him a thousand miles ago, but he did wonder if it held any truth. His eyes drifted towards his face, a part of himself that he never truly understood, something he never truly saw, since whenever he looked at his face...
...He saw five different ones looking back.
---
It was never good to stare at your own reflection for long; it only takes the slightest glance to discover something new to hate about yourself. Yachiru let the water run cold, quickly washing his face and the previous night terrors away, the only way he knew how. He slid his tattered red coat over his shoulders, taking a deep breath as he exited the tavern bathroom. It is only when he exited that he became aware of the line he'd created while in the bathroom.
The sounds of heavy footsteps stomping on the floorboards stopped him in his tracks as he looked up to see Seraphine rapidly approaching him, her long, defined arms reaching out to grab his collar. She is still wearing the exact same thing she slept in.
"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM!"
Seraphine exclaimed as she towered over him, as she started to rattle him in her grip.
"I have been waiting— WE have been waiting for you to quit moping in there, or whatever it is you do. Yachi... I. NEED. TO. SHOWER!"
the violet-haired girl remarked as she suddenly released him and rushed into the bathroom, not waiting for a response.