𝙏𝙃𝙐𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍 // 𝙧𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚 𝙭 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧

𝙢𝙖𝙜𝙞𝙘 𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙨

You awoke to all kinds of sounds at once in your ears. Screeching, white noise, pulsing, alarms, dial tones. Only for a fraction of a second before your body turned on and you shot bolt upright, coughing.

You pressed your palms to your ears briefly and then pulled them away to make sure they weren't bleeding.

You hadn't slept well that night. You felt you'd gained another memory - it had been a while since that happened.

The dream you'd had (if you could call it that) was akin to snippets from a movie. You had been following a lanky girl through the woods. You'd only seen the back of her body since she'd not turned around to you, however she had been speaking.

Her hair had been long and a dark, reddish, russet colour. Her skin had been a deep bronze, and her clothes were a mix of greys and colder tones. From her build, she had seemed to be only a teenager.

She had kept saying things that didn't really make sense to you - about searching for someone, or rescuing them maybe? The only thing you could comprehend clearly from her speech was that she'd come up with a nickname for you, and that was simply the first letter of your name - just [Y].

"[Y/N]?" Rogue questioned and your train of thought crashed horrendously - of course he was awake, he was always an early riser.

"Are you alright?" he continued.

You paused before you answered, "yeah, I'm alright."
You fully registered your surroundings, and realised Rogue wasn't necessarily the first up - in fact, he was quite possibly far from it. You were the last up.

"Oh, thank goodness you're awake now," Yukino's face was creased with worry.
"Shura and Juliette are gone!" Lector squawked.
"I think so too!" Frosch nodded his head.
"I agree!" Kuschel tacked on.

"Wait... what?" you groaned, slowly getting to your feet.
"We woke up and they were just... gone," Sting said.
"Mr. Shura? Are you around?! Spinster Juliette?!" Yukino called. Rogue waved his arm halfheartedly, shushing her.

You glanced around, rubbing the rheum from your eyes. Aleksander and Juliette were, indeed, gone. You shut your eyes again and took a slow breath in. All at once, your sense of smell was assaulted with the scent of sewage. You broke into a bout of coughs.

"[Y/N]?" all eyes turned to you.
"Rush was here," you wiped your nose, "he must've taken Shura and Juliette while we were asleep."

"Why would he do that? All of us are right here, and he must know by now we're chasin' after him," Sting said thoughtfully, "why just those two?"
"This ain't good," Past [Y/N] gritted her teeth, "something 'round here smells really off."

"Either way, we should get moving to seek them out," Yukino said.
"Yeah!" Sting gripped the air, "right, guys! We're on the road now!"

"Oh, be quiet," Rogue hissed.
"Are you alright?" you turned to him, brow knitting. He sighed and nodded.

"I slept rough last night," he explained shortly.
"I have sleep medicine in my bag, Rogue. You could have just asked," Yukino said kindly.
"Don't worry now," he shook his head.

And with that, you traversed on. Your past selves led the way.

"My Lector could totally beat your Kuschel in a fight," Past Sting said with a cocky grin.
"If your Exceed ever laid a hand on Kuschel, I'd blow him to bits," your past self growled. Lector made a disgruntled noise, eyes widening.

"Stop arguing across me," Past Rogue chided, "I've got a horrible headache."
"You two really are alike," Yukino giggled, "headaches, and whatnot."
"That's not necessarily good," Sting replied.