A/N: A requested fiction from someone who wanted to remain anonymous. This takes place a few years after the events of volume three. This fiction contains an outlook on what might become of a darker, more cynical Yang, after losing her arm. Chapter length and post frequency depends on the requester alone, although I do hope you all enjoy the work as well.
Summary: Her spirit, though tarnished, could never be snapped in two.
Brokenly Beautiful
One week of trudging through the thick forests had landed her to this location. Long sought after, and difficult to get to, she was finally able to say she had done the impossible. She had located the ever complicated, impossible to track down, Yang Xiao Long. The feat was one to be recorded in history, because the bombastic blonde was nothing if not elusive. Weiss Schnee had finally done it though, finding the woman in a rundown hovel that couldn't even be called a cottage.
She placed the bundle of supplies down, hiding them amongst the trees. It was only then that Weiss let herself take a breath. Peace of mind was only a view away. Without any guilt, she basked in the sight of her long time friend. A sight for sore, tired eyes.
Yang had a way about her, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, her one good hand cradling a beer. She sat on the front porch barefoot, the bottoms of her feet blackened by dirt as they rested upon a wooden support beam. She was a far cry from the person that had attended Beacon. A handful of years had changed her, and yet, there was nothing more beautiful than that sharp edgy look that dared to cut through the softness of any soul.
That playful smirk Weiss easily recalled had been abandoned, a smug one took its place. The light in lilac eyes had dimmed. There was a wildness to blonde hair as it framed her face and ran down shoulders like waves of yellow silk. Free. Untamed. Entirely and completely at the mercy of the wind that dragged on by gently.
In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, the woman still remained the embodiment of strength. Her orange wife beater and grey cargo pants were made for combat. Somehow, that further drove the point home. Yang was different now. No less beautiful, but, not the person she once was. Even her weapon, though dented, was still every bit as deadly as it rested on her wrist, waiting to be used.
With the kind of snarky reply that only come from the ex-terror of the campus herself, Yang slowly pulled the cigarette out of her mouth. "Well, well, well, still into those combat skirts I see. What's the matter, Weiss, hasn't that ass of yours filled out yet?"
Weiss found the image before her fitting, even if she couldn't say the same of Yang's sour personality. "That's it, it's finally happened." The wealthy woman scolded. "You've turned into your uncle."
Yang looked down at herself, shrugged, and drained the last of her beer, before drawing deep from her smoke. "Don't know how you can say that. I'm still rocking a hard core rack."
"Nice to see you're still a pervert." Weiss pointed out distantly as she crossed the stairs that had seen better days. A running theme of the house, and its owner. By the looks of it, this single bedroom home wasn't so much quaint, as much as completely minimalistic. It even lacked a toilet, and the nearest thing to a bath was the freezing lake that was a good distance away. "Really, Yang, why are you out here?"
"Seemed like the right thing to do."
And in that once simple statement, all of the memories flooded forward. A loaded story that only the members of team RWBY understood. It came to the forefront of both of their minds. Whether or not they'd done the right things, whether or not they continued to do so, it didn't seem to matter. Not anymore. Their old team had fractured, splintering in four different, and complicated directions.
"Be that as it may, you are wrong." Weiss pulled off her hat slowly, letting the afternoon sun grace her face for the first time. "Unequivocally wrong, if I do say so myself."
A bitter laugh, and a dirty little smirk later had Yang standing from her place. "Been wrong about a lot of things."
"Indeed..." Weiss said, the word thick on the air. She let her eyes take in the sight of this woman once more. Yang's arm was still a stub, and even though Weiss knew the reason why, it was still so off-putting. She could only assume living a life one-handed was torture. "You still refuse a prosthetic too, I see. I'll admit, I expected better of you."
"Is that all you came here for, Schnee?" Yang asked. "To bitch at me?"
"So very much like your uncle." Weiss muttered, having dealt with the man more than she cared to in recent years. "And yet, so very stupid." Weiss considered herself a calm, logical, and loyal human being. She also allowed herself the luxury of a vicious temper. Pulling the beer bottle that was empty from Yang's hand, she chucked it, watching it smash into tiny bits along the graveled pavement. "I came because when a Schnee invites you to a wedding, they do so under the implication that you will, in fact, attend!"
"It was none of my concern." Yang shrugged.
"None of your concern?" That concept was so utterly alien, that Weiss balked.
"That's right." Yang said, grabbing the bottle of whiskey that she kept sitting on the porch. She bit the cork off, and spit it to the side, swigging from the dusty glass bottle. "My uncle didn't need someone like me around on his most important day. Hell, your sister doesn't like me either, so win-win. They got hitched, and I got the hell out of their way."
"What happened to you?" Weiss asked, beyond words at this point. "Last I heard, you were enjoying life back home in Patch, and instead I find you here. In some backwater forest in no-man's land."
"Wanted it that way…"
You're a full week away from civilization!"
"Keeps people off my back."
"And out of your life." Weiss protested. "When was the last time you even spoke to your sister?"
Yang didn't say a word, leaning heavily on the wooden railing. That accursed whiskey bottle still in her hand, and upon her lips in that silent moment.
"That's what I thought." Weiss sighed at the prolonged drag. She had known that the sisters had fallen out of contact, but assumed it was because of Ruby. The woman couldn't keep still long enough to maintain any sort of contact. With Yang's reclusive behavior on top of it, Weiss had figured they'd lost touch. Now, she was sure, it was Yang avoiding being found. "Blake came back, by the way."
"Rutting with Sun?" Yang asked viciously, the bite in her tone so deep and full of pain it was unavoidable. She hated that name, hated what it meant, what it proved without a shadow of a doubt.
"Ruby actually…"
What was left of fractured resolve cracked under the weight of that implication, and Yang saw red. Not red like fire and fury, but something equally as rage inducing and blindsiding. "You're shitting me."
"No…Yang, I'm not." Weiss murmured quietly. "That's why I've been looking for you."
"To piss me off?!"
"To get help!" Weiss shouted. "Grimm have been showing up more and more in the large cities. Hunters and huntresses all over are gathering to disperse them as much as they can, but it's a loosing battle. We weren't aware of how bad it was until Blake decided to show up spitting nails and joining the fray. Ruby decided now is a good a time as any to put the old team back together. I'll admit, I was skeptical at first…but…"
"So Blake's fucking my little sister…"
"I'm not here merely to speculate the nocturnal activities of my former teammates." Weiss protested, the depth of her words carrying the undertone she was aiming for. "I'm here to tell you to get off of your sorry butt and get back to fighting. We need able-bodied warriors, and we need them now."
"Do I look able-bodied to you?" Yang asked, gesturing to the stump she once considered her arm. "I'm not the fighter I used to be, and I'm happy right where I am."
"You can feel sorry for yourself again later, but now is not the time." Weiss said, as she slapped the glass jug out of the alcoholic's hand. "We need you, Yang…"
It was at the point that the world seemed to stop to a screeching halt. What was peeking around some of the thick shrubbery was none other than a figment of Yang's imagination. "Please tell me that isn't what I think it is…" Yang all but growled.
"She's exactly what you think she is." Weiss sighed with a shake of her head. She turned to address the one that had followed her. "I thought I told you to stay back at the campsite young lady."
"Wasn't going to happen." The girl called back, as she jogged up to the home and at the foot of the stairs. "Yo." She smirked, waving to the blonde in front of her.
"Shit…" Yang felt a migraine coming on. "I'm entirely too sober for this."
"This little ball of trouble is your niece." The explanation left much to be desired. As Yang gave her a look as if she had grown a second head, Weiss clarified. "Adopted niece, I should say. Ruby found her during a skirmish in Patch."
"I'll be eight in June." The girl chirped as one ear atop her head flicked in excitement.
"Leave it to Ruby to pick up stray cats." Yang observed with an upraised eyebrow. She knew the sentiment was a little crass, but it was hardly like Weiss could blame her.
"Dog…" The girl corrected her.
"Makes even more sense." Yang sighed, giving a Weiss a look. If it could kill, would have done so several times over. "Get inside…"
The living area was emptier than Weiss thought it would be. They'd walked in, but the world seemed that much colder, abrasive and unreachable for Yang. Cobwebs among the corners, mouse holes in a rafter or two. This place was no more than a filthy cave, Yang's shoes by the door and a pair of rolled up socks told Weiss that the woman wasn't as completely uncivilized as she made herself out to be. Still, the rugs of animal skins was unsettling enough.
Weiss cursed under her breath, licking her lips, and feeling the tangible ache of destruction all around her. It wasn't the broken down cities, the fallen kingdoms, or even the collapsed powers of those aforementioned homes. It was the indestructible powerhouse in front of her. Truth be told, they were utterly human, utterly crushable, and Yang had been…in more ways than one.
What stood before her now, was evidence of that destruction.
Yang had slammed the door and locked it tightly, meandering around to do the same to the window. "So when did it happen?" Yang asked as she dunked a pot into a barrel of water. All but tossing it over some coals none too gently, hearing the condensation hiss and sizzle, she regarded Weis once more. "Why is this a thing?"
"You'd have to ask Ruby and Blake that." Weiss murmured with a shrug. "I didn't ask those kinds of questions."
"Horse shit…"
"I didn't have the time to do so."
"Maybe you should have found the time." Yang relented her anger for a second. An instinct long forgotten came slowly bubbling to the surface. "Where in the hell is my sister, Weiss?"
"Fighting, last I heard of her. She and Blake were headed beyond Atlas boarders." Weiss couldn't fathom how bad the fighting had gotten. "They're not alone. Nora and Ren are with them. My home is like a stronghold, so she was left in my care."
"Oh, I get it…" Yang smirked bitterly then. "You don't really need a fighter, you just need a babysitter."
"Is that really what you think?"
"I don't need to think it, I know it."
"I knew Ruby shouldn't have listened to you." Weiss could see it so clearly now, like a forgotten mutt on the roadside that had been kicked too hard, and for too long. "She said you needed a little bit of space, and that was fine…but this…" Yang was that sordid creature now, a sorry excuse for what she should have been. Her speed had become intense, her clout even more so, and Weiss had gone on long enough taking the verbal abuse that she had come to expect.
With a force she never expected to use on an old friend, she flung Yang hard into the adjoining wall. As expected, Yang took the blow as if it was nothing. For a woman like Yang, it was nothing. Brick crumbled to the floor, but Yang stayed steady on her feet, hunched forward, a sloppy but dangerous stance, as if she was ready to brawl. She shook the soot out of her hair a moment later. "Don't screw with me, Schnee."
"You're a fighter, Yang." Weiss rebuked with such a cold undertone, it could have frozen hell itself over. "That's what I need."
The blonde could only chuckle as she spat blood. "You need a reality check."
"Look in the mirror and say that." They were nose to nose again, and the youngest Schnee daughter found herself unbearably close to danger itself. There was a thrill to that, something sensual and exciting when it came to provoking such a person. "I require someone who can take a few hits. Dish them back out. I need you, so are you in, or are you out."
"Out…" Yang replied as she grabbed the now squealing tea kettle from the coals below.
…
It was not enough for Weiss, who then refused to leave the blonde's home.
Weiss could continue to pester her, but Yang had no more interest in fighting, she didn't have a reason to do it. She had made herself a new home, and a different future. It wasn't the one she expected, or the one she'd thought she'd live. Changing her ways had never been something Yang could do easily, because as flighty as she was, her spirit had always yanked her in one direction or another.
Over time, it had merely yanked her away from everything, and everyone, who might have mattered.
Yang was loyal to a fault though, as wild as she was, and she couldn't very well just kick Weiss out. She had wanted to, but for all of her inherited and learned abrasiveness, she just wasn't that cruel. None of her family could be, not at the end of the day. Even Yang's own mother, who harbored less than average maternal instinct, was still inclined on some level to look after her own kin…even if that meant doing so from a distance, vicariously through the eyes of others.
"The Grimm come out in waves at night." Yang said as she kept an eye on the window. Several of them made homes in the trees, perching there like old friends. "Keep the kid away from the windows."
"She reminds me of you, you know." Weiss said later that night over her countless cup of tea. It was the only way to really keep warm as the night's chill set in.
Yang said nothing to this, hot air spilling from her nose in annoyance. She continued to smoke, to sit there and look at the girl curled up under a tattered blanket in the firelight.
"She's smart-mouthed, gets into trouble…inquisitive…no one's able to hold her down for long…" Weiss trailed off then.
Still, Yang said nothing, and Weiss feared that Yang might never speak to her.
"She's a close combat fighter too. Little kick boxer, if she had a good teacher to show her the ropes, she'd be unstoppable…" Weiss pressed then, praying that some part of what she had to say might click. She never had asked Ruby why they kept the girl with them, it was just a natural little thing. Second nature. Weiss had began to understand why though, slowly, with each passing day. This girl was a lot like Yang used to be. Undaunted, easy to be with. Dutiful, yet rebellious.
Hard lives didn't get people like them down…not until it was too much to bear.
Yang moved, quite by surprise to even herself as she hauled the sleeping soon-to-be eight year old in her arm, using her brute strength as leverage. The girl slept like a rock too, apparently, because she didn't move. Dead weight in Yang's grasp, as Yang plopped the sleeping girl into the only bed the home contained.
It was that simple gesture, as uncomplicated as it was, that made a lump difficult to swallow.
Weiss tried, dearly, but she found that action impossible. Instead, she choked back a rough sob. For just that one tiny moment, the Yang she remembered had returned…but she was gone again in a blink of an eye. Guzzling down more booze, Yang went back to sitting near the fire.
"Make a pun, Yang." Weiss begged. "Please…just one stupid little pun."
"Don't have it in me." Yang instead gave the heiress a bored look, her arm resting across her knee. "If things are as bad as you say they are, then don't you think you have better things you should be doing? I've already given you my answer."
"And I've told you…it's not good enough." Weiss replied, her voice wavering between despair and determination. "I'm not leaving without you."
"That so?" Yang muttered with half a growl. A dirty little smirk found her lips. If Weiss was going to be that way about it, she might as well have a little fun. "Hope you like the wilderness, princess. You'll be stuck here a long time if you keep your word."
"Yang..."
"I'm not leaving, so just get over it..."