Ruby lowered her sword arm, which was starting to ache. "So, you can fire one of these from your shoulders?" Starrk gave her a nod. They were outside the structure now, moonlight illuminating the rivers of glass that streaked across the desert. Ruby sighed. "That sounds... really hard."

"It takes practice." Starrk conceded. He said nothing more, and gestured for her to continue.

Raising her left arm, Ruby allowed her reiryoku to build and extend outwards. She found it was easier to think of the ball forming around her hand as a little whirlpool, gathering together and building power until the ball was twice the size of her fist. "Cero."

The beam she fired wasn't the same as Starrk's. Starrk had a blue energy, like the sky above. The ground would wash with a beautiful blue light, and it would glint on the sand as he fired. Lilynette didn't show off to Ruby, but informed her that her own energy was light green. She fully expected her beam to be red. After all, her Aura was red. However, to her disappointment, it was simply a flat, boring white, with tinges of grey at the edges where the beam was thinner. Starrk had called it silver, but when she was firing one, she couldn't really see much of anything at all. So, it was grey.

"What exactly is reiryoku?"

Starrk exhaled. "I don't know. Do I look like a scientist to you?"

"Is it like Aura? Like, your soul?"

Starrk rubbed his face with a gloved hand. "I guess. Sure."

"Honestly, most of this is instinctual for us. Don't think too hard or you'll end up a nerd like Sayazel." Lilynette elaborated.

Ruby wasn't satisfied with the answer, but it was all she had. She tried moving on to a different topic after firing another Cero, this time with her off hand. "So, what happened to me, exactly? I mean, I'm not calling you guys weird or anything, but..." She gave glanced at Starrk.

He simply shrugged. "We were fighting some Soul Reaper. We died, we woke up here." Starrk got up from his seated position. "There's no one else here. As far as I can tell, this is your inner world, your soul."

Ruby frowned. "How does that work? Souls aren't a place, are they? They're a thing inside of us. And I have a hole thing. Holes right there are usually symbolic. Or, y'know. Fatal?"

"Like I said, I'm not a scientist. But supposedly Soul Reapers have an inner world type of thing where their sword spirits live in. I guess this is similar."

That... didn't help much at all. But it was an explanation that she could try to parse. "How'd you get in my soul then? And why's it so big and empty?" She fired another cero, this time straight up. As shadows were cast across the landscape, the dunes sparkled like broken glass.

Lilynette shrugged. They were doing that a lot, and it was starting to get old. "No clue. Maybe if you could use Resurreccion..."

"Uh, what?"

Lilynette turned to give Starrk a glare, who sighed and stood, wiping the sand off of his back. "Resurreccion is when you unseal your whole power. The Soul Reapers called it Shikai, or Bankai."

"Why would you seal your power? Wouldn't it be better to be as strong as possible?"

"Hrm." Starrk shook his head. "There can be problems if you leave your power unsealed." He sent a look at Lilynette, who nodded in agreement. "Watch. Kick about. Los Lobos."

Ruby winced at the sudden explosion of light that enveloped the pair. But she did watch. The energies pulling around her, and from her, were impossible to ignore. They glowed gently in the air, and When Starrk emerged from the smoke, she could only stare. "Cool outfit." Well, if that wasn't the stupidest thing she had said today.

"Hn." Starrk brought up two pistols. There were black with silver plates on the side, the triggers not leading to any chamber. Rather, they seemed to be pulling on a switch from something at the front of the gun. "Whatever. Just look."

"Ooh!" Ruby sprung up towards him, ignoring the strange pressure that had been building behind her eyeballs. "Pistols, Starrk? I didn't peg you for pistols."

"Is that right?"

"Nope. I thought you'd be using some sorta shotgun, actually." Starrk simply raised an eyebrow. Ruby glanced around. "Hey, where's Lilynette?"

"I'm right here." one of the guns spoke in a crackly voice, like there was a radio installed in it.

Ruby started, then stared at the gun on her left. "Lilynette?"

"Yeah, I'm the gun." Lilynette sounded annoyed.

"How're you doing that?"

"Resurreccion." Starrk replied. He brought up one of his guns and pulled the trigger. Instead of a bullet, Ruby was once again blinded by the blast of one of Starrk's Cero.

"So... you're also a gun?" Lilynette wasn't amused by Ruby's laughter.

Morning came, and Ruby felt rested for once. She had spent the rest of the night meditating with Starrk and Lilynette, supposedly to help her achieve some sort of connection. It was making her restless, she had found. Sitting still wasn't her forte, was it? But now, it was morning, and she had classes, which meant more sitting. This time, she wasn't the first to rise, as the sounds of the shower were a soft white noise in the background. Now, what time was it?

"Hey, guys. Wake up. It's six-thirty." Blake was the one on the shower, so she ended up waking Weiss and Yang. Yang wasn't one to surrender her blankets this morning, it seemed. The sounds of the shower stopped.

"Later Ruby. Couldn't sleep. Had a creepy dream." Yang turned over.

Ruby let out a huff and left her sister alone. "Hey Weiss. It's six-thirty." Unlike Yang, Weiss made it awake. "Six-thirty? I set an alarm for six."

"I know." Blake had stepped out of the bathroom. "Next time, wake up to turn it off."

"Sorry." And Weiss sounded sorry. Ruby wasn't sure why that was so surprising. "Had trouble sleeping."

"Didn't we all?" Blake raised an eyebrow at Ruby.

"What?" Ruby blinked. "Are you still worried about me? I'm fine."

"You have a hole through your chest."

"It's fine." Ruby insisted once more. She closed herself in the bathroom.

Sparring class. Oh, finally! Ruby wasn't grinning, but she could feel the energy building just underneath her skin, giving her goosebumps. She needed to tear into something.

"Miss Rose, you have a weapon for class today?" Glynda Goodwitch asked from the stage. Ruby nodded, gesturing to the sword draped across her back. "Very good. I didn't get to evaluate you in the first class period, so you'll be first today." Goodwitch glanced at the room. "Your opponent... Miss Nikos, if you would. Five minute round."

Pyrrha seemed to be okay with fighting her, getting to the stage before Ruby had even thought about moving herself. She joined Pyrrha, aligning her feet to the taped line that defined starting positions. Nevermore came off of her shoulder, held loosely in two hands. The opponent's chest and lower face were obscured by a shield coming up, spear held at shoulder level. She couldn't help but feel excited, like she wanted . Goodwitch glanced at the two combatants, and nodded. "Begin."

Surprisingly, Pyrrha acted first, maybe hoping to unbalance Ruby by attacking with a downwards angle. Just get it in the way. She pushed forward with Nevermore's hilt, twisting it so that it would hopefully catch on one of the extruding parts of Pyrrha's javelin. If it was just a spear, that wouldn't have worked at all, but the blade ran across the flat of her javelin and caught on a joint. She saw Pyrrha glance at the point of contact before slamming Ruby in the gut with the edge of her shield, which sent her skidding towards the edge of the arena. Okay, time to take the initiative.

The world stretched and Ruby was behind her opponent, swinging down at her neck. Pyrrha had good reactions, twirling so that Nevermore was shoved aside as it glanced off of her backplate. She backed up quickly, sending a quick stab at Ruby with her javelin, which was knocked aside. The two competitors eased into a wary silence, the only sound being Pyrrha's spear becoming a short sword, held with confidence. A sword? She could deal with that better than Pyrrha's spear, she supposed. Go! She swung down with the heaviest strike she could muster, hoping to cut her shoulder. Instead, the shield came up faster than Ruby thought a normal student could, and Nevermore was blown to the side, leaving her overextended. Pyrrha's opportunity, then, as she mirrored Ruby's two-handed strike with her own one-handed weapon. It hit Ruby surprisingly hard, Pyrrha was strong! Good thing for Ruby that her opponent wasn't nearly as fast as her.

She disengaged as quickly as she could, a cool feeling settling on her shoulders. Her aura and reiryoku were swirling excitedly, but the nausea she normally would feel was nowhere to be found. It had only been a few blows, but she was already getting this feeling? That same feeling from the forest.

There was an opponent in front of her. She let her eyes droop a little. Relax, keep your grip firm and loose. And go faster. Behind Pyrrha once more, Ruby tried to hit on her sword side. The other red sword came between them, but instead of disengaging, Ruby chose to push back, sliding Nevermore down as she tried to shove Pyrrha down. Pyrrha was the one to jump back this time with a grunt, bringing her shield up warily. Maybe it was the crowd, maybe it was the blood rushing in her ears, maybe it was the strange burning in her gut to fight, but she simply dashed up to her opponent and sent two, three, four swings at Pyrrha, all deflected and redirected to harmlessly glance off of the bronze shield. Attack, block, dodge. Try and get behind, attack again. Gunfire! Try and close, dodge. There was a strange rhythm forming between the two combatants, and Ruby could feel her attacks getting sucked into a cadence. She could never quite land a solid hit on her opponent, always deflected or dodged barely. At the same time, Pyrrha was just so slow. Especially now that Ruby was getting into it. She started relying less on short bursts of Semblance and simply outsped Pyrrha, always ready to deflect her sword with a forearm or with Nevermore. Her right sleeve had fallen off somewhere in the fight, cut to ribbons by Pyrrha's sword, but she had a hard time caring. This was really, really fun! Maybe she could try... her right hand began to gather power.

"Time!" Ruby and Pyrrha startled together, Ruby looking into her opponent's widening eyes. Pyrrha was mid thrust, Ruby bringing up Nevermore to block. The spear pulled away from Ruby's chest at an odd angle before clattering to the ground. The glanced together at the overhead screen, to see that yes, time had run out. Five whole minutes of sparring, and both of them still had over thirty percent of their aura left.

Pyrrha brought out a hand to shake, which Ruby took. They both looked to the professor, who simply shook her head. "By points, Miss Nikos would be the winner in a sanctioned match. But this was an evaluation, not a competition." Ruby felt some sense of satisfaction coming from the professor, but chose to make no comment on it. "Thank you girls." She turned to look at the rest of the class. "The rest of the one on one sparring will be randomized, no time limit matches. I anticipate we will finish the pool at the end of the month. Tomorrow and Thursday will be physical training for the first half of class. Friday we will be team sparring. Please do work on your teamwork tomorrow and Thursday. Today, however, we want to get started on the random pool. Miss Rose, Miss Nikos, you won't be called today. Thank you. Next up..."

Lunch was a similar affair as the day before, but this time Ruby had a better handle on her time. Eating didn't take long now that she knew what she was doing. Professor Peach had been helping her redesign Crescent Rose to be less fragile, and Ruby was taking the opportunity to possibly make some changes herself. When Peach asked about the strange channel that Ruby had running on the right side of the gun, it was explained away as a cosmetic thing. Fortunately, Peach didn't object and simply designed around it.

She still had a good fifteen minutes of lunch left over when she was done, so she found herself back in her dorm room. Blake glanced up at the intruder only to find her team leader there, crossing the room to her own desk.

"That was pretty reckless. I didn't take you for the type." Blake's voice was always soft and considerate, wasn't it?

"Did you mean the spar?"

Blake nodded. "You two were really going at it. It was like watching a movie at the end, when the Professor called time."

"I don't know about that. It was fun, though."

"Fun?" Blake asked.

"Yeah. I don't know, all the sitting and studying had me restless, I guess." Ruby tried to explain.

"Ruby, can I ask you something?" Oh. Now that was a tone of voice Ruby hadn't heard since two days ago.

"Shoot." She mimed a finger pistol. Blake, instead of asking her question immediately, reached under her pillow and brought out a gleaming bone mask. Was that...? Oh, it was!

"Is this yours?"

"Oh! Mhm." Ruby nodded, grabbing the mask from Blake and turning it over in her hands. It was the first time she had seen the red streaks across the left side before, that reminded her first of Lilynette, then of the White Fang. The mask slipped onto her face as naturally as a second skin, and her reiryoku seemed to hum in agreement. Blake flinched.

Wait, what was that? Blake's bow was twitching, almost nervously. "Where did you get that?" Blake sounded much more wary now.

She frowned. "I honestly don't know." Blake seemed a bit incredulous at that statement. "I guess it's the same place I got this hole." She pushed at her shirt and let the fabric from crinkles that showed off the hole in her chest. "I guess... I got it from Starrk?"

"Who's Starrk?"

"Ah, one of my... teachers, I guess. At night I'll go meet with him and we'll train together." Okay, explaining her dreams was hard, and she didn't want Blake thinking she was a nutjob as well as a freak, now did she? It was hard to build team bonds with a hole in her chest! "He's a bit of a lone wolf type." Sometimes she would think Starrk was a wolf Faunus. She could imagine the grey ears sticking out from under his hair.

"So... he's not White Fang, is he?"

Ruby shook her head. "Don't think so. I wear this when we train together. He's got one too."

"Oh. Well..." Blake seemed to struggle with her words.

"Why are you asking about the White Fang anyways, Blake?" Ruby tilted her head at Blake with the best curious expression she could muster. It seemed to work, because Blake cracked pretty quickly. Maybe she just needed someone to talk to?

"I was... involved with them a while back. I saw the mask, and thought maybe you were hunting them, or maybe part of them. I had to know." She seemed insistent.

"Well, now you know." Ruby noted that the conversation was over and gave herself an imaginary pat on the back. Blake seemed to want to object, but Ruby glanced at the clock. "Come on, Blake." She gave her best 'commanding officer' voice. "Let's get to class." She gave Blake a bit of a goofy grin and a bow, popping her mask off and dropping it in a drawer.

"I honestly have a hard time not believing you, when you put things that bluntly." Blake was giving her a sly smile now too. "Are you always this direct?"

Ruby simply nodded, and the two held a comfortable silence together on their way to history.