It felt somewhat unreal to walk back the path they had come from when Mink had already prepared himself to never see any of this scenery again in lieu of being alive. This morning he had been set on taking his own life and ending his journey towards death by his own hands. But then another person had unexpectedly joined him on his presumably last walk. Thinking about it now he wondered why he had even allowed Clear to follow him then.

Earning the knowledge that Clear was a robot, like the ones Toue had used to torture him back in the days when he had been the man's captive, had been like the revelation of betrayal to Mink. The devastated state of the robot and his unchanged, earnest smell however, had scattered the blinding, upcoming hate towards Clear as one of Toue's products as soon as it had overcome Mink again, though. Mink was a man who judged people based on their actions rather than on their backgrounds, but a robot usually had no soul to dictate its way of acting, it only had parameters to base its actions on instead. And Toue's machines had been made to incorporate with humans, to deceive them and to mimic what they understood as being human, but they had nothing to call a soul. Yet this particular one, who walked in front of him now with a cheerful tune ringing in his throat and chattering away with his Allmate bird in-between, was more human than robot. He even had accomplished the smell of a soul and the scent had almost been entrancing to Mink.
Mink knew that his own soul reeked of death for a long time now, since the events in his past had led for it to be defiled over and over again until it had been engulfed by death completely. It was a dark and heavy kind of smell that clung to him, maybe that had been the reason he had been so enraptured by the contrasting smell of Clear's soul, which spoke of clarity, light and positivity.

But the white-haired odd one had suffered from the fact that he wasn't human and if Clear had told him the truth, then that knowledge had hit him just recently. Loosing your identity from one day to another was something Mink could relate to. He had experienced something similar, when he was suddenly the only person left of a whole tribe and he had felt like the ground had fallen out from underneath his feet.
Maybe all of these factors had led to Mink giving his consent to Clear following him on his path towards the graves of his late family. They were both lost and on their search for answers from the way life had turned out to be for them, with the difference that Mink had prepared an answer for himself already. But in the end he hadn't executed his original plan.

Walking through the old territory of his tribe, seeing the ruins, seeing the way nature had reclaimed most of what once had stood in its place, how another form of life had begun to find a way among the debris - it had spoken to Mink. His friends and family, they were no longer there, they had moved on as well. Their souls rested with the Gods now. They weren't crying in pain any longer, their bodies didn't bleed or burn anymore, their tears had stopped. They had gone back to the soil to allow new life to hatch in their stead.
Mink had forgotten that this would happen, when he had buried them by himself back then, every single one of them. His eyes had been unable to stop the tears flowing out of them, his body had been screaming under the strain of too much earth to be moved out of the way and his head had been aching from the memories resurfacing of every person whose name he had carved into the stone plates. When he had laid them to rest among the earth then, he had seen each of their faces and their broken bodies in the horrible state they had been left in after the shooting and the fire, and it had kindled nothing but hatred inside of Mink.
Sadness, desperation and frustration over his past had accompanied him for a very, very long time afterwards, until he had felt hollowed out from the inside out, as if he was barely able to feel anything at all anymore; things like compassion having moved to the far end of his consciousness. He had felt like he had transformed into something that was and was not himself at the same time. Even the gray coat he wore had become more than an article of clothing to him, like a front to hide behind along with the shackles which weight he could feel even when he wasn't wearing them. There had been other chains binding him then what had been visible from the outside.
He had been set out for revenge on Toue for the countless lives he had taken and the emptiness he had created in their stead. Mink had felt like his soul had already joined his people on the day their journey towards death had ended, leaving just an empty shell that needed to be gotten rid of as soon as Mink's goal to purge the world of this man's existence was fulfilled.

But there was still enough left of himself to be noticed by a being that acknowledged him as alive, who wanted to be friends with him, who cared despite having no reason to. Clear had told him that he was still living even now, that the state of his body was proof of it, and that there were things he could still achieve in the time he had left before his journey towards death would end naturally. The surprising thing for Mink was, that there had indeed been things coming to mind then. The emptiness in his soul had finally appeared as something that was refillable to him.
Maybe the incense he had burned today had been part of the trick as well. Mink knew which scent to expect from the herbs he had mixed himself before he had burned them. It had been meant to open up a path to the members of his tribe, to lead him on his journey to join their sides once again. But the smell had been too weak for some reason, the flame as he had lit the incense wouldn't take on the colour he had expected it to do, and the smoke had been unwilling to drift in the way that was preferable to built a bridge. It was like his late tribe members were telling him not to join them yet, as if they had shut the gate from their side and were not willing to unlock it to greet Mink.
Had he made a mistake when he had mixed the ingredients the night before? Mink couldn't believe to have forgotten the recipe, since he had used incense during his days as Scratch's leader as well, but maybe he had forgotten to add something. He had been pretty tired from the flight towards his homeland, so maybe his concentration had not been the best yesterday. Whatever the reason was that the incense had not been perfect, it had just seemed to Mink like the shaking of a head instead of the nod he had sought. The right time simply had not come yet it seemed.

Mink smiled a thin smile at himself as he watched Clear's back while the android hopped on the pathway in front of him like an overjoyed child. Then Clear stopped short and turned around to wave his hand at him.

"Mink-san! Let's get home fast! I want to cook something for you to celebrate!"

The taller man exhaled through his nose as if to sigh, and kept walking in the same slow pace as before - a barely visible grin was tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"We'll have to buy ingredients first."

"Eeeh? Is that sooo?", Clear nagged and his face had fallen for a moment at the prospect of not getting what he wanted as soon as he wished for it, but then it lit back up with another smile.
"Then let's go shopping, Mink-san! Do we head over to the next town to do it? If I remember correctly... it was that way, right?"

Clear pointed towards the forest and Mink took a moment to estimate his guessed direction and then nodded.
"We can't just randomly take the linear distance, though, since it's easy to get lost around here. Let's head back the way we came from first."

"Alright then.", the white-haired android responded and proceeded to head for the wooden house he only had seen from the outside so far.

The pink cockatoo suddenly decided to land on Clear's shoulder and seemed interested to engage him in conversation.
"Say, Clear, can you actually cook?"

"Of course I can.", came the straight answer adorned with a smile, "I've often cooked for my grandfather and he always praised my cooking, so I'm pretty confident that it'll taste good."

"That's good to hear.", the Allmate gave back and glanced at his owner walking behind them. "My master has a tendency not to care too much for his intake of nutrition, so I'm thankful if somebody is going to supervise that."
Mink looked back at the bird, but appeared not to have heard what he had said - or not to care about it for that matter, so the cockatoo directed his view back to Clear and noticed a change in him. A smile had been plastered to Clear's face when he had boasted about his cooking skills before, but now he looked at the bird sitting on his shoulder with a questioning look.
"Is something the matter?", the mechanical bird asked and his conversation partner seemed a bit flustered by the question.

"No, it's just... I'm sorry, but I simply cannot remember your name, Cockatoo-san, even though you've been part of master's team when we headed to Oval Tower.", he hesitantly admitted and seemed a bit crestfallen to not be able to address the Allmate properly.

"That's because I've never introduced myself.", came the flat answer from the pink bird, "But it doesn't matter what you call me, since I do not have a name."

"Eh?"
Clear blinked.
"You don't have a name, Cockatoo-san? What does Mink-san call you then?"

"Usually something along the lines of 'you', 'hey' or 'bird'."

There had been no hurt undertone in the bird's voice, only his usual aura of indifference towards the matter, but Clear still frowned and tried to project his thoughts.
"Doesn't not having a name frustrate you, Cockatoo-san? If I try to remember, what I was referred to as before I was given my name by my grandfather, it was just a row of numbers. It was... kind of degrading."

The Allmate perched on Clear's shoulder kept quiet and then looked over his shoulder towards his owner again. Mink still seemed not to have heard their conversation and the bird caught himself thinking that he wished Mink's attention would have been drawn towards the matter, since he was the one capable of giving him a name after all. But then he looked back at Clear and appeared as unfazed as ever.
"A name is not that important. Call me whatever you like."
Before Clear could react to the cockatoo's view on the subject, the Allmate spread his wings and was back riding the winds over the head of his owner and companion again.

Clear involuntarily stopped walking as his eyes followed the pink bird in the sky.

When Mink arrived by his side he gave him a questioning look.
"What is it?"

As if Mink's question had dragged him back to reality, Clear jerked and scratched his back of the head before trying to collect his thoughts again.
"Oh, it's... It's nothing, really."
He finally started to move again with Mink walking beside him now.
"I was just talking to your Allmate about the importance of a name, but... I guess my perception of the matter is different from your cockatoo's, Mink-san."

Mink simply rose an eyebrow and then gave his Allmate soaring in the skies a skeptical look.

He never had thought about giving the bird a name until now. He had been nothing more than a tool to be used for Mink's plans after all. He was useful to him, because he was a machine and because they were connected in a way that didn't make the Allmate question his motivations or how he was doing things. But the situation had changed since he had left Midorijima and now that the matter had come up, he wondered why he had even brought the Allmate with him in the first place. He guessed that he had just grown so accustomed to having him by his side, that it had just felt natural to take him with him, even if he was about to end his own life in his home country. He had been able to share his thoughts with the bird, his plans, his motivations. He had never been rebuked by his Allmate, if anything he had been questioned on the meaning of his way of doing things out of sheer curiosity for human beings by the A. I. implanted into the machine. Realizing all of that lead to the conclusion that the bird had become more than just a thing to be used for Mink, he had become something akin to a friend for him, a "someone", not an "it" anymore, and a somebody deserved to have a name.

As he watched the cockatoo drawing circles in the sky over their heads and riding the wind like it was his nature, something came to mind and Mink stopped walking. As if commanded to do so, the mechanical bird soared downwards to land on Mink's outstretched arm.

"I am going to give you a name if you are willing to take one now."

Mink's Allmate blinked at him and cocked his head with the curiosity of a bird, but said nothing, as if he was going to accept whatever might come out of his master's mouth.

"I will give you the name of a god of wind, storm and fire who helped attempting to create mankind. His name is Rulacane."

"Rulacane.", the bird repeated and then nodded. He seemed pleased to share his name with a deity and grateful to be acknowledged as worthy by Mink to carry a name now. Then he took off towards the vast heavens again, as if to demonstrate that Mink's choice of his name had not been made by chance.

"He seems happy that you have given him a name, Mink-san.", Clear commented with a smile as he watched the bird acting as if the sky belonged to him only.

Mink answered Clear's smile with a small lift of his corners of the mouth and then began to walk towards his house again.

It was weird how fast things could be changed, he thought. The time, that had felt to Mink as if it had come to a standstill since that dreadful day in his past, suddenly seemed to tick on faster than usual. It was as if he had to catch up on the many things he had paid no mind to, while he had been on his mission to carry out his plans considering Toue, as fast as he could. Mink drew in a deep breath and let out a long sigh. He had to slow down - no, he actually could slow down now. There was no reason for haste anymore.

When they finally arrived Mink's cabin, the taller man told Clear to rest up for a moment, before they would head out again, while he was going to change in his room. He had kept it to himself, but the sudden urge to change his appearance before setting foot into the neighboring village had grown within him the moment he had began to think about the things he would need if he wanted to start to make a living over here. If he was planning to eat, then he had to spend money on food and in order to earn this, he had to work - easy as that. Maybe he would find a job offer on his way through the village and first impressions were important, so the look of him as an ex-convict might not be the best choice. He had not that much to choose from, though, since a change of clothes had been the last thing he had thought about when he had boarded a plane that ultimately had his own grave as its destination. Therefore he decided to make the best out of what he had.

He started by changing out of the gray coat he wore and unshackled himself from the heavy chains around his neck and wrists. Their weight didn't seem to leave his body completely, however. In the absence of spare clothes to wear due to not having planned to be still alive as of now, Mink settled with just wearing his black t-shirt, his ragged jeans and his boots the way he had done it in Midorijima as well. He removed the pink bandana and the hair tie he had used to keep a good portion of his hair back to prevent it from falling down and blocking his view, and loosened his ponytail. Unshackled and with his hair let down with a middle parting, he felt less restrained altogether, but thought that something was missing that would make him more comfortable while walking around. Then he faintly remembered to still have some of his old, handcrafted jewelry back from the time when he had tried to settle into that house years before, so he looked for the box that contained these. He found it where he had left it, albeit a bit dusty, and chose to take a red and black bracelet to ward off negative energy and a small necklace with a lone, short feather in its center. He also kept the bracelet on his left wrist, which was made of rainbow coloured pearls and also worked as his coil. With the positivity all of those items stood for put on his body, Mink felt more secure and finally somewhat lighter than before. Having the need to look at himself now, he opened his empty wardrobe and gazed at the inside of the door featuring a mirror. Staring at his reflection made him notice something he had trained himself to get used to over the years: the blueish eye colour looking back at him. It wasn't the natural colour his eyes had, just the result of wearing special contacts to help against Toue's hypnotic lights Mink had encountered in Platinum Jail. It had become that much of a habit to put them in every day, that the thought of not doing so hadn't even crossed Mink's mind this morning. But now that he tried to rid himself of an image put up like a front, he deemed the contacts unnecessary and took them out, too. Blinking at the mirror, two golden eyes shone back at him now. He finally recognized his reflection as something he could get used to.

Having been faced with the emptiness of his wardrobe as he closed the door again, Mink tried to come up with what clothes he would need in the future. A new coat was a necessity, given how the weather was behaving in this area and the fact that his old, gray coat featured only one intact sleeve. Another shirt besides the one he wore now was certainly a good idea as well, same went for his ragged pants.
Mink sighed.
These new purchases might cost quite some money and he hadn't brought much with himself, only enough to pay for his flight and a bit of spare change to get to his destination from the airport, if transportation was needed. It was probably enough to pay for some food for the time being, but he probably would have to put upgrading his stock of clothes on hold for now.
With that in mind he gave his cast-off, gray coat another look. Even if taking it off had felt like lifting a burden off himself, going outside without another layer of clothing would not be a wise decision considering the unpredictability of the weather over here. And with money being tight, becoming ill was the last thing he could afford. Therefore he decided to put the clothing's usefulness before his own feelings and decided to put it back on for the time being. But the way it looked still bothered him, so he searched for some scissors he kept close to his tools for making jewelry back from the old days, and cut off both sleeves around the armhole to make the whole item look more symmetrical again. One being off was a mistake, but two sleeves missing was on purpose - or something like that was his line of thought. Having cut the coat to something akin to an overlong vest of sorts, Mink slid it over his shoulders and finally left his room.

Stepping into the living area, he found Clear sitting on a wooden chair across a likewise wooden table in front of his couch and chatting away with his Allmate perched on his shoulder. The albino smiled at Mink when he entered the room and clapped his hands together in admiration.

"Mink-san!", he beamed, "You look great like that."
Then he got up from his seat and was suddenly eye to eye with Mink by standing on his toes and made a wondering face.
"Oh, you changed your eye colour as well, Mink-san, how did you do this?"

Mink was uncomfortable upon the sudden closeness and took a step backwards, before he answered him in a pressed voice.
"Contacts. This is my natural eye colour."

"Oooh, I see!", Clear smiled and then added: "Your eyes look really pretty - like the sun!"

Not being used to compliments, Mink broke eye-contact and spoke about an entirely different subject without looking at Clear directly.
"Just to make a rough estimate of living expenses for the time being: Do you need to eat?"

"EH?"

Clear blinked as if he hadn't understood the question and Mink let a sigh escape his nose.

"I know you can eat, but do you need to eat to keep going?"

Clear finally got, that the question was asked because he wasn't quite human body-wise and his mood felt subdued as he answered him.
"Uhm... Yes, I do need to eat, Mink-san. I can function without taking in food, like I did from yesterday to today, for example, but I can't keep that up forever."

He sent an unsure look towards Mink, but neither the man's expression nor his voice had a hint of being angry, when he answered him matter-of-factly.

"Food for two people it is then."
Mink roughly counted the money he had left in his head and made a grim face upon the realisation that they wouldn't last long on his savings alone.

Clear tried to guess what might go through Mink's mind, but came to the conclusion that money could be a problem for Mink. Not wanting to be a burden on the man, he told him about his pocket money.
"Uhm, I can pay for myself, Mink-san. There is some money stashed on the card I got at the airport when I bought my flight ticket."
He fished the card out of his coat pocket and held it up in front of Mink.
"See? There should still be something left on it."

Mink lifted his eyebrows and let Clear hand him his card, so he could run it over his bracelet-like coil to read the sum deposited on the piece of plastic.
The number lighting up slightly impressed him and he looked at Clear approvingly as he handed him back his card.
"This does help out."

Clear's smile returned to his face, but the next second he jolted up as a thought hit him.
"Ah! Now that I think about it, since Mink-san is willing to let me stay at his house, don't I need to pay you rent? Will it be enough for that, too?"

Mink appeared to be surprised of Clear's way of thinking, but gave him a slight shake of the head.
"You can make yourself useful at the house and we'll call it even."

"Eh? Is that really okay?"

Mink already seemed to have enough of the topic and just waved a hand at him lazily.
"It won't hurt to get a job later on, but we can discuss this some other time."

"Understood, Mink-san!", Clear beamed and appeared as happy as a little kid.

They left the bird to watch over the house and set out to head over to the closest village then.
Mink finally took the time to actually take in what resources he had at his disposal around here with his eyes. Food was a given, it seemed, as was clothing, which were two points Mink was able to check off from his list. There even was a small hardware store, which Mink thought useful if he needed to add tools to his collection or materials to work on his house should the need arise. Glancing at Clear, who appeared to take in every detail of the small village with a childlike euphoria dancing on his facial features, Mink looked for a store providing repairs for mechanical things, but couldn't find any as he casually looked around. He hoped it wasn't needed, but if something were to happen to Clear, Mink wouldn't be able to help him, since his skills were very limited in that direction, same went for Rulacane of course. He made a mental note to look up possible shops in this area later on his coil.

For now the most pressing matter was to organize some food, so Mink headed for the store providing that and inspected the display in front of the shop. The food looked fresh but sparsely and a somewhat high-priced. It was probably due to the village being small and remote, but Mink was pretty sure there must be something like a weekly market being held around here, so it might be best to ask the people living here about that later.
Mink sighed.
Interacting with people outside of his Rib team and not just shouting orders at somebody to get things done for him was something Mink had to get used to again. For now the shop would provide what he needed, though, so he entered it and got himself a stack of the most basic things like milk, eggs, floor, oil and of course coffee, alongside some other items. His fridge was pretty much empty, but he didn't want to overstock either, since the belief of his people had always been to only eat what's absolutely necessary and wasting food due to it getting spoiled was a downright no-go for him. Still, restocking from zero meant to pay for a lot of things and to carry an equal lot of grocery bags. Clear was right at this side and offered to carry more than half the stuff he bought, though, so Mink didn't really worry how to get all of it home, when they left the shop.

Counting the money being left from his own savings, Mink frowned and wondered whether he should go for a new set of clothes again. They had their hands full with groceries anyway, but they couldn't have done it the other way around, because Mink put nourishments before clothing and didn't want to save on the wrong things. Clear had said he would help out with his money, but Mink had taken that as a way to last longer with what they had then spending money on things outside of what was most needed. And his clothes weren't that well-worn to fall off his body yet, to he kind of still refused to pay for something new at this point in time. Still, he couldn't stop himself from at least taking a short look at the mannequins in the shopwindow when they passed by the clothing store on their way out of town. Maybe it was just because Mink connected getting himself a new outfit with finally putting that chapter with Toue behind himself, but with no financial security backing him up yet, due to having no income as of now, he refused to let himself be lured into the shop.

Clear followed Mink's view as he walked behind him and briefly glanced at the display. He was pretty sure the clothes would look good on Mink, but since they didn't enter the shop, Clear was unsure whether Mink was truly interested in them. Therefore, he decided to just ask him.
"Would you like to go in and buy these clothes, Mink-san? I'm sure they will suit you."

Mink looked over his shoulder at his companion without stopping his feet, and met Clear's curious look. He sighed and gave him a somewhat disgruntled answer.
"Not right now when money is tight. There are more important things to consider."

"Eh? Is that so?"
Clear's eyes flew over the price chart standing next to the mannequin and summed up the costs as he continued to follow Mink. Judging by how much they had spent on food today and how much of his own pocket money was still left on his card, Clear thought it would not be a problem, even if Mink should decide to buy himself a new set of clothes, but he had noticed how short-spoken Mink had been towards the topic and how he had almost growled at him. Maybe Mink knew something he didn't, Clear wasn't sure how spending money on things worked, considering the very few occasions he had experienced doing it so far.

They moved on without talking much on their way back to Mink's house.