"Mr. Winchester! Will you pay attention!"
Cardin started, reluctantly meeting the stern green eyes of Glynda Goodwitch and muttering a lame apology, which she predictably ignored before resuming her speech. Rolling his eyes once he was sure her back was turned, Cardin—abandoning all pretense of interest in her lengthy lecture (about "strategy over force" or some other, similarly useless concept)—tried to find that one Xiao Long girl again.
She'd been on his radar ever since the incident in Forever Fall, when Russel had pointed her out in the dining hall. "She lifted me off the ground by the shoulders," he had whispered, with unmistakable terror in his eyes. Though Cardin had initially scoffed at the idea, he'd kept a skeptical eye on her just to see if his teammate was right. Yang Xiao Long had managed to make it into the most prestigious combat school in existence, after all. She couldn't be just another damsel in distress.
However, as several weeks of careful and fruitless observation passed, Cardin had gradually realized that he had vastly underestimated his ability to withstand her previously unnoticed attractiveness. Yang was hot, and she knew it. Unfortunately, Cardin didn't have the nerve to tell her he thought so too. No matter how bold he was in his asserting himself over weaker guys, he had major problems talking to girls. (Especially girls with their own reverse harems of decidedly non-weak guys.)
Well, human girls, anyway. Faunus were a different matter altogether. They were just creatures, and he didn't have issues with talking to animals like the inferior beings they were. But, since Yang was human—and had no trouble showing off that perfect body of hers to prove it—Cardin found himself entirely unable to talk to her, or even approach her. His teammates were even beginning to question him—why he'd been spending his lunches staring off into 'space', otherwise known as the lovely, unobtainable violet hue of Yang's eyes.
It wasn't fair. Even Jaune Arc had girls falling all over him, and he wasn't half as powerful as Cardin. (Two girls in particular, that is, but still two more than Cardin had.) Whatever happened to 'survival of the fittest'? By that logic, Cardin should be getting all the girls. All of them. Yang Xiao Long first and foremost among them, of course.
"Mr. Winchester." Goodwitch's voice broke into his internal lamentations, and he jumped again. "You will kindly step up to face Miss Xiao Long in battle, to demonstrate what I have just explained to the class." With the tiniest of smiles, Goodwitch stepped aside, allowing a confused and mortified Cardin to ascend the steps to the arena stage after a shocked pause.
"I hope you're ready for this," smirked Yang quietly when he met her on the stage, priming her bracelets for battle. "After all, you've been paying such great attention. What's on your tiny mind, asshole?"
Cardin grit his teeth, unable to meet her eyes or respond—or even draw his weapon. He'd been called worse, he was sure, but her insults stung at his heart, and he found himself completely disarmed. Rather than dwell on the sinking feeling in his stomach, Cardin forced himself to focus on the imminent duel. This would be a great opportunity to analyze exactly how strong his opponent was, but he didn't exactly want to stop watching her if Russel was proven right.
She was, in a word, tantalizing, and he was determined to get his way someday.
"Cat got your tongue?" teased Yang, breaking the silence as she sashayed up to him (Cardin might have blushed as he took a step back automatically), and punched him in the face.
Cardin reeled backwards, instinctively drawing his mace, and ignored Goodwitch's exclamation of praise. Apparently, part of the lesson had included something about distractions. Clenching his teeth, Cardin swung his weapon at her, but Yang propelled herself upward with her gauntlets and brought her foot down on his shoulder. Yelping, Cardin hazily thought that if it weren't for his armor, she might have dislocated it.
"What's the matter, Cardin?" she asked, taunting, as he clutched at his shoulder. She was enjoying this; fiery triumph burned in her eyes—or maybe just fire; his blue eyes widened as hers turned gradually redder, until they glowed like lava. "Where's your fighting spirit? Did you use it all up on pulling Velvet Scarlatina's ears?"
"…No," grunted Cardin defensively, after some frightened deliberation, as he straightened up and brought his mace diagonally onto Yang's head in one fluid motion. She staggered, caught off-guard, and a high-pitched voice called out from the crowd (Cardin vaguely recognized as her precocious little sister); a surge of energy ran through his veins, and he followed up that single strike by impulsively whacking his weapon into her stomach.
No matter how attractive she was, that didn't make Cardin want to spare her what she was more than willing to do to him.
To his surprise, Yang didn't get up again after smacking into the ground, lying almost suggestively on her back. Frowning, and having suspected that she would be exponentially tougher in a fight than the puny Jaune, Cardin approached carefully, weapon at the ready. He was not going to let her outfox him, no matter how foxy she may be. There was just no way she was beaten, especially as Goodwitch wasn't calling the match in his favor.
Cardin stood over her, resenting that, since Yang's eyes were closed, he couldn't tell which color they were—placidly purple or wrathfully red. However, just after he raised his foot to further crush her diaphragm, she brought her leg up to kick him in the knee, unbalancing him. Flailing as she jumped back to her feet, a savage smile sharpening her features, Cardin seized two firm handfuls of golden hair and dragged Yang down with him.
He couldn't say how often he had imagined this exact situation: too stunned to move, Yang's fists were curled on his breastplate, hair hanging down loose in flaxen curtains and obscuring most of her face but allowing a fine view down her shirt. Cardin might have tried to smile at her or tell her some lame pickup line if he hadn't been preoccupied with said perspective—or if he hadn't realized that she was shaking.
Shaking like the tremors preceding a volcano.
The fear that had been pressing against Cardin's consciousness since the beginning of the battle finally broke through as her golden hair erupted suddenly into flames. Letting out a distinctly un-manly cry of alarm, Cardin tried to scoot away from Yang, but she anticipated his movement and held him back by the shoulders as she straddled his midriff, clamping her knees around his sides to prevent his escape.
"It's too bad you didn't last longer," Yang growled, fair hair ablaze, and another, stronger surge of panic rose like bile. "But then, I didn't expect anything more from someone as pathetic as you!" she added with undiluted ferocity, and with the last word, knocked Cardin out with a blow to the temple.
The last thing he remembered thinking was that if he never saw an open flame again, it would be too soon—especially if she was the source. No matter how hot Yang Xiao Long might be (and no matter whether that meaning was literal or figurative), he was not going to risk life and limb by telling her about it.
Admiring from a distance would be necessary to his survival in months to come.
((Finished way ahead of schedule! I hope you enjoyed it, JC785!
I was going to make it a bit longer, but decided that if I tried to improve it, I'd ruin it instead. Maybe I'll continue it someday, though.))