Through the eyes of an assassin - a RWBY fanfiction

A/N: This chapter is quite short and is mostly a rehash of canon material. Honestly, Beacon initiation has been regurgitated hundreds of time in RWBY fandom and I am quite tempted to simply skip the whole affair with a couple of sentences. Still when it comes to Ren and Nora, one could argue that there are some blanks in what is shown in canon.

I also want to thank every reader who took some of his precious time to read, favourite/follow or review my story. I think the premise of this fanfiction is not everybodys cup of tea, but the few reviews I got until now are quite encouraging. Truly, seeing people appreciate my story is a really nice motivator.

I will also try to answer questions that pop up in the reviews. You will find them at the end of the chapter.


Chapter 4 - Beating big snakes to death

I was standing on a launching platform holding my weapons. I would like to say that I was mentally preparing myself to be launched into a forest full of vicious Grimm, that I was psyching myself up to confront the opposition, but Initiation or Grimm could not be further from my mind, because I was confronted with a phenomenon outside my understanding.

The source of my confusion was one professor Ozpin.

After leaving the organization and learning about the general ignorance concerning everything related to qi, I also discovered very quickly that most people were incapable or very bad at sensing qi levels; at least in comparison to me. After arriving at Beacon I was kind of curious about the level of sophistication regarding qi-sensing that my peers could display, but none of them seemed even the least bit psyched out by Ozpin's presence.

Perhaps I should not be hasty in my judgment. Me and Nora were late, so both of us missed this man's entrance speech. Perhaps that opportunity was sufficient for the other students to get used to this man's qi.

Or should I say, his complete and utter lack of qi.

The man was a ghost. A spectre. An invisible being without substance floating amidst the grand flow of energy that suffused and sustained live. He was air, nothingness. Physical existence combined with complete absence of spiritual existence.

And the thought of him turning into an enemy almost scared me into submission. Good thing Ozpin was widely regarded as a force of virtue and lawfulness. Otherwise I would have probably lost it here and there.

It was of course impossible. A being that was neutral in regards to qi did not exist. The living radiated qi, the Grimm sucked it in. Like electrons that wandered from plus to minus. Like the flow between Yin and Yang. Therefore, the man was concealing his signature. Perfectly. I did not think it possible, but no matter how much I strained my third eye, no matter how much further I stretched my meridian network to the outside, I felt nothing at the place where the current head of Beacon Academy was supposedly standing.

Not even my master was capable of this level of qi concealment, and she was a certified monster.

"...do not hesitate to destroy anything in your path or you will die."

Oh nice. I overheard the beginning of his speech. What was it again? The first person you make eye contact with became your partner? That made things easy.

"You will be monitored and graded..."

In other words, there will be surveillance drones swarming across the whole forest. Great. So, no special qi attacks and no inconspicuous changing of my contact lenses. At least the pain in my eyes had become a little bit more bearable.

"...for the duration of the initiation, but our instructors will not intervene."

Interesting. So its sink or swim. Rumors about cases of death during previous initiations did not sound that exaggerated anymore.

"You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff."

That again sounds easy enough.

"We will guard that item as well as your standing and grade you appropriately. Are there any questions?"

"Yeah, ah sir."

A blonde haired boy wearing a white breast plate raised his hand awkwardly. Now this guy was a curiosity, too. While all the other students had their qi enveloping and dynamically flowing the inside and outside of their bodies and in some cases the weapons they carried, this guy's qi was resting solely inside his body. Like a big peaceful reservoir, for his pool was massive. I strained my third eye again, trying to scry deeper into his spirit. I felt pure, unblemished energy. He probably had more qi to throw around than Nora and she was already a beast.

"Good, now take your position", Ozpin cut off the boy.

I readied myself. As did the other students except the blonde.

Indeed a curiosity. If I did not know it better, I would say that he behaved like someone who was way out of his element. On the other hand, nerves could do that to you.

"Ah sir, I have got a question."

Had to be an important one.

"So, this landing strategy thing, what is it? Like, do you drop us off or something?"

Was he for real?

"No, you will be falling."

"Oh, I see", the boy said. An awkward pause followed and Nora was launched into the air.

"So did you hand out parachutes..."

And then I was flying, too.

Landing was a cinch. I briefly thought about using qinggong to dampen the inertia and jump across the trees, but letting myself fly forward would just increase the distance between me and Nora. Instead, I deployed the hook blades mounted on my twin pistols and used them to slide along the axis of a big tree.

That took me back to the old days. The days when I was still using a naked blade to fight – and to kill. I patted of some dirt from my sleeves and hid the twin pistols again. Force of habit, but I never felt quite comfortable as long as my weapons were out in display.

I looked up and saw another one of the students who was still flying. Another blonde and judging from her enthusiastic cries she was having the time of her life. I could not tell more from such a cursory glance, but I should have more than enough opportunities after initiation to learn everything I wanted from my classmates. I started to walk towards Nora's qi signature. After so many years spotting her energy among the various threads of life had become second nature to me.

I moved through the forest and its uneven terrain like a shadow taking heed not to disturb the wildlife or the vegetation. The qi sucking voids of Grimm were all around me, but I managed to evade almost all of them. Nora was moving steadily towards my position. Unfortunately, there was another signature following me. It was a big void, overshadowing the rich life force of the forest. It gained traction, speed and the nearer it came the more I could picture its gnawing instincts in my mind: Hunger. Greed. An aching desire to devour. I could try to outrun this Grimm, but I was not confident that increasing the speed of my shadowwalk would enable me to pass all the others without alerting them to my presence.

Instead, I stopped and waited straining all my senses to the limit.

It was upon me. I could even hear the rustling of the leafs and bushes. The next moment a snake the size of a tunnel began its assault, curling its gigantic body around me, topping its tube-like body onto itself until I was surrounded by walls of black flesh. My escape routes were cut off. I sighed inwardly. Just my luck to run into an ancient King Taijitu.

I took my empty-handed stance before I stopped myself. Weapons first. I was after all being monitored. My hesitation cost me a precious second of time. I saw out of the corner of my eye how the snake was opening its maw, ready to swallow me whole.

I started my combat breathing pattern. Enriching my blood with qi, letting the energy suffuse my bones and picturing my body to be as weightless as a leaf in the wind. I jumped out of the confines of the snake body, turned my body at the peak of my arc and let my twin pistols spit fire.

The bullets turned out to be nothing more but a nuisance and when the big toothy head lunged at me, I turned my body again in mid-flight to snap a kick at the monster. This time, my attack did have an effect. The head of the King Taijitu crashed down. The moment my feet touched the ground I leaped towards my enemy and struck it another blow with my blades.

The damage was negligible, though I only had myself to blame. The Grimm did not care either way and lunged at me again. I jumped out of the way and watched the beast crash against the ground, saw it became stuck for a second, while I felt the air rush around me.

I rolled in mid-flight and used gravity to enhance the hammer-blow which I dealt with both my weapons. I felt the blades sunk deep into the neck of the monster. Very satisfying.

That was easier than I thought, or so I wished, but the tricky part about a Taijitu was that they were never ever alone. I heard the tell-tale slithering sound and there it was – the second head, ready to maim, ready to strike.

I cartwheeled out of the way and saw to my dismay that the first head managed to shrug off the damage again, and now it was two against one. Never heard of fair-play, guys?

Evading two attacking snake heads turned out to be quite difficult. I tried to force them into blind spots by running along their shared body, all the while strafing them with bullets, but the hide was too thick for the firearms to do any good. My feet lost their traction on the slippery scales for a moment and that second of hesitation allowed the white Taijitu to tackle me to the ground.

My qi barrier absorbed most of the damage, but the sudden shock made me lose my grip on my weapons. When I stood up while still feeling dazed the black Taijitu struck home.

I cried out to suppress my fear and pumped my qi to the palms of my hand, watching straight into a wide open maw, big enough to swallow me whole.

I pushed and pushed and the strength of my barrier produced pink flickers of energy. A deadlock and I had to get out of it fast. But what to do against an enemy superior in force? I could almost picture my master roll her eyes at the triviality of the question.

The core precept of taijiquan: Use the force of the enemy against himself.

Yin and Yang, push and pull, wax and wane. Even a gigantic beast is subject to actio and reactio, the agonism and antagonism of muscular movement. I strained my haptic sense, finding the exact moment when the snake head pulled slightly back to push again. I reduced the qi output on my palms letting the energy envelope my hands like a glove and then -

I strengthened my arms, grabbed its fangs and ripped them out. My arms flowed with the ripping motion and guided my torso out of the way of the snake's pushing attack and when my arms finished a full circle it felt like the fangs I was gripping sunk themselves into the soft red eye of the Grimm.

I inhaled sharply and constricted my dantian, squeezing energy and directing it to my right palm. A thrust, a feeling of emptiness as my qi was sucked into the head of the Grimm followed by bloody annihilation. Watching Grimm heads blown into smithereens was a sight that never got old.

I calmed down my breath, felt the adrenaline dissipate.

If what the headmaster said was true, this whole fight had been recorded. Talk about bad luck, but that was still better than dying.

I locked my sight on the white Taijitu and took my empty handed stance. What was done, was done. Fighting this monster with these weapons was simply too much of a risk. I dashed towards the remaining head and watched it rear back and lunge. I cartwheeled and struck the head a glancing blow with my left palm, feeling the disturbed air of the attack tickle my skin. As my feet landed I leaped towards the neck of the white beast. I saw it turn its head but before it could muster its strength I dealt it my second palm strike. The white Taijitu froze like it was paralyzed and then, slowly, it felt over like a gigantic puppet whose strings were cut. Itchor started to flow out of its maw staining its red-forked tongue midnight black.

I breathed out heavily and slowed my blood flow. That was a costly fight. My energy pool was down to one-fourth of its capacity and I felt some strain on my respiratory organs, namely heart and lung. Nothing serious, but after initiation I would have to rest for two days while replenishing and purifying my qi.

I went to pick up my pistols and let them slide into my sleeves. That was when I heard a strange cooing sound. The next moment a orange haired girl stuck out of the foliage with her whole body hanging upside down.

"Nora, I still don't think that's what a sloth sounds like."

She stuck out her index finger and lightly tapped me on the nose.

"Boop." She quibbed.

I could not help but smile a little.


Glossary

Yin and Yang (阴/阳): Considering the symbolism behind the King Taijitu, I think it fitting to elaborate a bit on this particular concept. The Yin/Yang symbol - a circle with one half white/black in addition to one black dot on the white half and on white dot on the black half - is mostly associated with Martial Arts in the West, but that is really the tip of the iceberg. Yin/Yang is also important in Daoist teachings and philosophy, traditional chinese medicine and even influenced certain japanese schools of thought and mysticism like Onmyōdō.

If I were to sum it up, the core teaching of Yin and Yang is the interdependence of polar opposites. Daoist scholars looking at the world are usually of the opinion that things like good vs evil, black morality vs white morality are not a matter of absolutes but of perception. An example: The only reason the hero of a story (like Ruby) considers herself one of the good guys is because she puts herself in opposition to bad guys like Torchwick or Cinder and vice versa. Basically, the only reason she can be a hero is because she has villains to defeat. We as readers (or consumers) of the story stand on the outside of the narration and therefore have an easy time to look at the good faction or bad faction as something separate, but a Daoist scholar would argue that this separation which we express through 'labels' like good/evil, Hunter/villain is a mere illusion.

In other words, Daoist teachings do not concentrate on what makes the 'good' or 'evil' side different, because that would just exacerbate the depth of the illusion, but focus instead on how both sides influence each other, their interconnectivity and how they are different aspects of a whole. The old saying about two sides of the same coin applies here.

Qi also gets separated between Yin-Qi and Yang-Qi, a distinction that is very important in traditional chinese medicine - and that gets further differentiated under the system of Wuxing (the five elements). What is important to note in Remnant is that the concept of Aura is far less exact or defined than the Qi system which is the reason why Ren can manipulate Aura/Qi better than almost every canon character. But fear not, every school of thought has its advantages and disadvantages and there is a very serious flaw with the whole Qi-system.

Q/A section

Vostok2141: Its nice to see that there are readers who know about Wuxia. Now to answer your question about Neo: If we look at the canon material, Neo 'changing identities' is a pretty common thing. Her Semblance seems to be some kind of glamour effect and she uses that to disguise herself as an exchange student (Cinders team in the Vytal festival), medical staff (after Mercury's 'defeat' by Yang) and Atlas military personel (Torchwicks rescue). Arguably, most of these disguises are short term and if you were to compare it with the kind of identity change that Ren and Nora perform, it is nowhere near as thorough. And about that business card: That is actually her 'real' name, as far as any person with her profession can have a real identity. Neo is (at least in my story) a nickname and an acronym. Natalja Efratesco Ovianti.

Meta: I am well aware of Naruto, probably the only shonen series out of the big three (One Piece, Bleach and Naruto) that I have not read. Somehow the series never clicked with me and about me using it as inspiration: Between my knowledge of chinese culture, medicine, real life martial arts and natural sciences, I don't think that I need it.