Chapter One: Lightning Comes
The house was typical Yang, Ruby thought: big and boisterous and just a little bit falling apart. Finding it proved no difficulty; she had merely looked up Xiao Long in the phone book, and though the house sat alone on the edge of town with neither number nor nameplate, from the moment Ruby had laid eyes on it she distinctly recognized it as Yang. Something of her sister lived in the yellow peeled bricks and marigold-flush lawn and the custom high-speed bike parked outside the garage. Her sister, it seemed, had done well for herself in the years after graduation.
Despite knowing what she came here to do, despite the exact measures Ruby had taken to harden her heart – she found it fluttering as she walked up the cracked stone steps, butterflies like her first day at Beacon. Her hand hovered on the doorbell, and with a burst of courage pressed down.
The door opened.
"Who are you?"
Who are you indeed, Ruby thought. Yang had changed over the last six years. She was taller, leaner, fuller, her hair thick as a lion's mane tumbling to her waist. The years had stripped away the fat from her body, turned her muscles into cordwood prominent in the light of the noon-day sun. Her skin had turned a light tan, decorated with a new repertoire of scars: one across her cheek, three more along her legs, a gash snaking from her neck to the top of her breasts, and she was not shy about them, no demure maiden, dressed in a flimsy tank top and shorts that displayed the scars proudly like treasured tattoos.
"Do I know you?" Yang said again, eyebrows scrunched up as if she were trying to remember something. Then the violet eyes turn clear. The pink lips dropped open, and Yang's entire body went slack as she took a step back, hands trembling as if the truth were a monster looming from the shadows:
"Ruby?"
"I'm back, sis," Ruby said quietly.
– and found herself lying on the grass, staring at a crystal-blue sky with her ears ringing from the impact of being run over by a freight truck. Yang lay on top of her, arms wrapped around Ruby's shoulders, her entire body shaking from the force of her laughter (or sobs?). The smell of her was so nostalgic Ruby almost cried: summers spent on Patch, the whirlwind days at Beacon, lifetimes and lifetimes ago. "I can't breathe," she gasped out, and Yang finally untangled herself, extending a hand.
"It's really you," Yang said. "I can't believe it. Ruby! It's really – " Her words crumbled into another fit of laughter. With a sudden exertion of force, she let out a breath, smiling at Ruby with periwinkle eyes. "If this is a dream, it's the most beautiful dream I've ever had. Come inside."
Same old Yang, Ruby thought with relief as they situated themselves in the living room. Never one to accept anything half-heartedly. If they were apart ten thousand years Ruby still would've recognized that smile, that voice, that laughter, closer to her than any other. And Yang, too, had recognized her, despite her own changes. They had spent eighteen years together, Ruby thought sadly. Two thirds of their lives.
Yang poured out two cups of sake ("I ran out of tea a few days ago," she said abashedly). It was a sweet milk blend, lukewarm. Yang's eyes never left her face, as if looking away would cause Ruby to vanish once more. No doubt Yang saw her as she had seen Yang: years of change condensed into a few moments, imagination grasping for the stories behind each stray scar and hem. So many questions. Which one to ask first? And in typical Yang fashion they exploded out all at once.
"Where've you been? It's been so long! We all thought you were…I mean, after that mission, we thought – we thought the worst had happened. It's been six years! You're back! I can't believe it! Have you told anyone else yet? What happened to you?"
Ruby turned the saucer in her hands. Considering what had to be done, there was no use in lying or even half-truths. Indeed, this entire conversation served no purpose. But she had wanted to talk with Yang again, even if only for a short while. Ruby's fingers played with the handle of Crescent Rose sheathed beneath her cloak; the weight of it was comforting. Many times she had imagined this conversation in her head, but the her in real life was not nearly as eloquent as the her in her imagination.
"I survived the Grimm ambush. For the last six years I've trained. And I've come back now, to do what needs to be done."
The detachedness of her voice made Yang raised an eyebrow. Ruby read the uncertainty there: You've changed. "We've all changed," Ruby thought aloud, and Yang flinched.
"And what about you?" Ruby said, gesturing around her. The room was a tribute to bloodshed. The table was lined with Grimm fur, sitting atop a Grimmskin rug, and the skullmasks of Ursas and Beowolves and a huge grinning Taijuu lined the walls. The air smelled of lemon and preservatives. Was it revenge? Ruby thought. An overreaction against the race that had killed her sister? But an undercurrent of violence had always ran through Yang; perhaps it had not needed any stoking. There, on the mantelpiece – a picture of the four of them during the Beacon graduation, all smiling, and on Ruby's face: a faint blotch, as if a teardrop had once landed there.
"I've been working as a Huntress," Yang said. "The government picked me up after graduation, but I quit after a few years. I do freelance work now, mostly bounty hunting. Picked up a new hobby, too. Everything you see in here – " she grinned " – I've personally killed and stuffed. How do you like the collection?"
"You've made quite the name for yourself." Hushed purrs in the dark-time before sunrise: Lightning comes. Sleep, my child, or the stormbringer will slaughter you. A hero in one tale is a villain in another.
And they were all so unaware of it, Ruby thought, gazing out the window to the rest of Vale beyond.
"Part of me knew," Yang spoke in a tight voice, as if someone's fingers were around her throat. "We all waited for you. We thought you'd come back again, walk back into our lives as if you'd never left. Over the years it became harder and harder to hope. But I knew – what do they say about sisters? – that you were – " Her voice choked, and she closed her eyes, and she laughed, and Ruby, too, found herself smiling, and put a hand on her chest to still her traitorous heart beating beneath her cloak.
Yang turned away, clearing her throat. "Weiss and Blake will be overjoyed to know you're alive. Have you told them yet?"
"No. Where are they?"
"Weiss is the head of the Schnee Dust company now. Strange how things turn out, huh? After all the talk of being a Huntress! We still talk from time to time, but she's busy most of the time. Blake…I'm not sure. I haven't heard from her in years." Yang's voice turned quiet. Her hair fell over her eyes. She spoke to her hands. "We broke up after you disappeared. For a while we stuck together – waiting, I think. But it didn't last. Too many painful memories. We each blamed ourselves. How did you…How did you survive? The rest of us barely made it out of that forest. I wanted to go back – we all wanted to go back. For you. But the Grimm outnumbered the trees, and we were already so injured, and there were the townspeople to think of…by next morning the entire forest was gone – but we tried, Ruby, we tried, I swear!"
Yang's voice turned into a sob. And this, too, was Yang as Ruby remembered her. It would be better for her if I stayed dead, Ruby realized; no matter what Yang said, no matter what Yang herself thought she wanted – she had already accepted her sister's death. Ruby wanted to reach out and bring her close, as she had dreamed many times during the separation, the torture, the delusions (perhaps this, too, was another fevered dream?). I've never blamed you, Ruby thought, or Blake or Weiss. How can I hate my own flesh and blood? But six years cannot be discarded like a moth-eaten cloak.
Ruby set down her saucer of sake. When she spoke her voice was cold.
"The Grimm killed me that night. I died, and I was reborn. They flayed into me the truth of the world. I see now, as I've never seen before."
Doubt ran across Yang's face, then turned slowly to fear.
"The first truth of the world: the innocent are the most prone to corruption. The second truth: all that you believe is the opposite of what is real. The third truth: within every love lies the start of hate." Ruby drew Crescent Rose from her waist, extending to its full length the pale black blade, surface undulating like obese worms. "The fourth truth of the world: those who rule it are the least deserving to rule."
Yang's face sickened. At last she seemed to realize something had gone wrong. Crescent Rose snaked through the air. Yang brought up Ember Celica, but she was slow, rusted creaking joints. It was obvious that she still did not understand, did not see what was in front of her eyes, or refused to see. If dreams came true did you question the dreammaker? Crescent Rose tore into Yang's body. From the wound sprouted thick black liquid, tearing through Aura like acid, eating into the flesh. Yang screamed. Crescent Rose arched back, then swung from the other side, cutting deep into Yang's shoulder with a squelch like a feasting animal. Desperately, Yang's fingers scrabbled against the handle, trying to force it free. Ruby pressed deeper, like pressing a hot knife into a steak. Black liquid oozed. Yang tried to speak and made only wet choking noises. She looked at Ruby with confused, clouded eyes.
"A hundred times I died. A hundred days and a hundred nights. You think you know pain? You do not – " Ruby's voice cracked, and the scream died in her throat " – know pain. At last I saw. Bones of glass. Hills of flesh. Soldiers killing infants and welcomed as heroes. Have you ever been to a cannibal shop? The meat there is the sweetest in the world. Two arms and two legs are not enough. Give us eyes, mother, so we may lead the blind. When judgement comes, you will beg for what I had to go through." Then, in a whisper: "I love you, sis."
Crescent Rose came down, bifurcating Yang from shoulder to thigh. Yang's legs sank to the floor; her torso rolled once, twice, came to a stop before the maw of a Beowolf skull. The Grimm seem to be laughing. Shaking, Ruby sheathed Crescent Rose, with difficulty; the weapon snarled, sucking at the pooling blood. Yang's face, frozen in that rictus of disbelief, followed Ruby as she stumbled to the door. I loved her, she thought. And because I loved her, I killed her.
One down, two to go.