Ruby turned to the cheering masses grinning, with one hand on her hip and the other clutching Crescent Rose. Ruby couldn't wipe the triumphant smile off her own face; this felt amazing. She had to soak in the glory, just for a little longer. Cardin Winchester lay defeated on the cold, hard ground, eliminated from the tournament. A sour scowl painted his face. Ruby had finished him quickly, rather than draw out his defeat. An act of kindness, technically.
The young huntress looked out into the audience, scanning her eyes rapidly across them. She knew what she was looking for, focusing on every speck of white she could pinpoint. Ruby sighed, failing to spot what she was searching for. Weiss had left by now. The heiress never stuck around for the celebrations. Ruby swiftly collapsed Crescent Rose into its smallest form; she stepped out of the arena, greeted by more rapturous applause, as well as a rib-crushing bear hug from her boisterous big sister.
Blake, Ruby and Ren sat quietly next to each other in the Beacon Library, appearing tidy for once in their school uniforms. The only disruptions in the silence came from the flick of a page, the scribble of a pen, the ticking of the antique clock above them...the minute hand crawled forward, now reading 11:05PM. Ruby scowled at the assignment set on the table before her; Professor Oobleck's work was always the hardest. The homework required Ruby to write a minimum of 2,000 words on the ways in which Dust was discovered and harvested by humanity, and how it had helped them fight back against the Grimm. Ruby twirled her pen in her fingers, slumping her face on her palm and frowning at the textbooks scattered all over the desk. She glanced over to Blake and Ren on her left. Both seemed content, scribbling away as they fought through the homework easily. Ruby cast out a heavy sigh.
Blake's ears twitched. She looked up from her work, distracted. Ruby caught sight of this and looked over to her, trying to strain her own ears to catch whatever Blake could hear. Nothing yet. Gradually, a click clack rhythm came into earshot; Ren turned slowly whilst Ruby swivelled round in an instant. Her heart jumped just a little. The heiress was approaching them, stepping carefully between two bookcases before stopping in front of Ruby.
"May I?" Weiss gestured to the empty seat adjacent to Ruby's. Ruby nodded, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, immediately regretting her actions. Stupid body. Stupid neck. Weiss slid the chair out and took her seat delicately, procuring various academic journals and history textbooks from her bag. They sat in silence for a few moments. Weiss pretended she was scanning through paragraphs, racking her brain for something to initiate conversation. Ruby was clearly attempting the same, pretending to point at words and highlight them. Weiss restrained a smirk. I'm more similar to that dolt than I care to acknowledge.
"So, you defeated that Cardin boy in an impressively short duration of time." Weiss barely broke the silence, her voice a careful whisper in the library. Ruby fought to resist goosebumps raising on her neck and arms as Weiss had leant in to whisper into her right ear. She wrestled her senses back to normal inside her head.
"...Yep. I can't believe I made it to the Bracket B finals!" Ruby replied, barely containing her excitability to a low volume. Weiss nodded, but did not verbally reply, leaving Ruby to spur the conversation on. "Are you excited for your match against Pyhrra? I-I know that I am...you know..." Ruby trailed off, staring at her white-haired partner and silently begging for a response. Weiss looked up from her notes and returned Ruby's gaze. "Yes, I suppose I am. It should be exhilarating."
If Weiss truly was excited for her match, she certainly didn't show it on her face. She broke eye contact and returned to her work, producing letters which beautifully flowed and connected to each other. Ren leaned over, joining in with their conversation.
"First things first guys. Sun Wukong is taking on that Tristen guy tomorrow. Now that should be worth watching." he said, glancing between the two of them. Weiss froze her writing momentarily at the mention of his name. Tristen. Ren seemed to sense something was off...Ruby looked puzzled at the both of them, before Ren cleared his throat awkwardly, returning to his work. Ruby gripped her pen tighter, biting her lip in frustration at herself. What was wrong with Weiss? She couldn't seem to fit the pieces together, and as long as she couldn't do that, she was powerless to aid her partner. A team leader was supposed to deal with these problems...yet Ruby could not break through her partner's metaphorical defences.
Ruby broke free of her worries, watching the heiress continue her work. Each word was a piece of her art in its own right, her left hand drifting slowly over the paper as the ink obeyed tiny movements from her hand and formed the immaculate lettering. Ruby peered over, entranced.
"Whoaaah...Weiss, how do you write like that?" she whispered, still watching the process with intrigue. Weiss did not look up from her work, but failed to prevent herself smiling bashfully. Damn it, the heiress cursed herself in her thoughts. "It's called calligraphy, Ruby." Ruby restrained her goosebumps again. Calligraphy. Such a gorgeous word, spoken by Weiss's sing-song voice, sent shivers down her spine. Ruby piped up, fixated on Weiss's page. "Can you teach me to write like that? Pleease?" she whispered into Weiss's ear. Weiss continued to smile, rolling her eyes. "Fine. But only once you've finished your homework" she replied in a mock serious tone. Ruby groaned.
Ruby leaned over once more. "Weiss, what was that word again?". Weiss blinked, tilting her head to the side, looking right at Ruby again.
"Calligraphy."
Ruby stifled a squeal of joy. It just sounded so good.
Totally worth it.
Yang grabbed the navy blue aviators from her back pocket. She'd need them today. The midday sun was intense; a late September heat wave had hit Vale. Whilst her friends sweltered and struggled in the sun, Yang basked in its glory. She soaked up the heat and the light merrily; after all, her semblance was well suited for such conditions. Through the dark tint of her sunglasses, the blonde took in her surroundings.
They were back at Ascension Stadium again. To her right were her close friends: Ruby, Weiss, Jaune, Pyhrra, Nora and Ren. The only one missing...was Blake. Yang turned her head to focus on the arena and the podiums, far down below in the centre. Blake stood opposite, gesturing something to Sun with her arms. She seemed to be explaining or suggesting something. Probably a pep talk, or a battle strategy. Opposite them, sitting down on the podium, was Sun's opponent. Tristen, or whatever he was called. He seemed so overly relaxed, it seemed to irritate Yang. She was boisterous and cocky herself, but never mockingly so. The blonde disliked overconfidence in other people. And thus, this kid annoyed her. Man, I wish I was still in the tournament, she grudgingly thought to herself. I'd have given him something to worry about for sure.
The marshal stepped out holding his microphone on the stage below. Yang sighed and groaned. She was getting really tired of all the pre-match theatrics by now; she just wanted to see the damn fights, not sit through some pompous cheese. This time, Yang popped in some earphones and decided to blast speed metal into her ears instead. She waited impatiently, watching the plump dork swing his arms around in a ludicrous display, thankfully unable to hear his overdramatic announcing. When the stadium clock dropped to thirty seconds, she finally stopped the music and tuned back in.
"...and best of luck to both our competitors, Sun! And! Tristen!" he shouted, and the crowd reciprocated. "Hunters, please take your positions on the podiums!" Sun left Blake with a brief embrace, and he and Tristen stood deadly still on their podiums; Yang could tell that both were completely in the zone. The Tristen boy still looked...as if he didn't really care if he was here, however. Yang scowled, and the only thought she could conjure was let me at him. Yang observed her partner turn and walk away from the podiums, taking a seat on a bench at the sidelines. Glancing to her right, she watched the reactions of her friends closely: Ruby cheered Sun's name, whilst Weiss filed her nails, keeping her focus on the arena however. Pyhrra and Jaune were silent and sharing a bucket of popcorn. Dawww, that's cute. At the far end of the line were Ren and Nora: Nora was devouring cotton candy whilst Ren narrowed his eyes, taking in every detail of the arena.
This arena was...interesting, to say the least. A circular pit, one hundred metres in diameter, separated the two competitors; it was moderately filled with tropical trees, vines and shrubs. There was a good balance between foliage for cover, and enough space to fight without being restricted by the environment.
The stadium clock hit five seconds. The marshall counted down. Sun bent his knees...ready to jump. Tristen stood with his hands in his pockets, a broadsword still sheathed on his back. Weiss pocketed her nail file and crossed her arms whilst Ruby stopped jumping up and down, holding her breath.
The clock hit zero.
Sun leapt upwards and forwards, equipping his staff as he fell down into the jungle-esque arena. He swept his head left, then right; visibility was restricted in here. He wouldn't be able to find Tristen until they were fairly close in proximity. He dashed forward, zipping between the trees; soon enough, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the enemy. He stalked forward, using the trees for cover, mere meters from his target. Sun waited for Tristen to move a little closer, bent his knees...and launched towards the opposition.
Tristen swivelled around to meet his attacker, unfazed. Sun began to swing accurate, lightning-fast manoeuvres with his staff. Vertically, horizontally, diagonally; Sun attacked with the bo-staff from every angle.
Tristen dodged and ducked under all of them.
After a furious fifteen seconds of continuous attempts, Sun growled and halted his attacks, dazed and frustrated. Why won't he fight back? The two stared at each other intensely. Tristen returned his hands to his pockets, an irritating polite smile beaming back at Sun. Sun caught his breath, straightened his back and glared at his enemy.
"What's your deal?!" Sun shouted, gripping his staff so tight his knuckles were practically white. Tristen looked puzzled, as if he didn't understand Sun's rage.
"My...deal?" came the reply.
"You don't fight. You just dance around." Sun said through gritted teeth. All this Tristen guy had done so far was make Sun look like an idiot in front of thousands of spectators, moving out of the way of Sun's every attack. Even now, the audience mumbled and murmured: the fight had essentially stopped, not long after it had started. Tristen paused momentarily, and smiled again, shrugging. "Oh, sorry about that. It's just quieter this way. Less effort." he replied, casually looking around. He wouldn't even give Sun eye contact. The faunus couldn't stand the disrespect. He snapped.
"So you don't like noise, is that it?" Sun growled, and discretely seperated his staff into its 2 shotgun/nunchakus form. "Then you're gonna hate ME!" Sun dived towards him.
Sun began his signature moves, as Tristen woke up and pulled out his broadsword. Sun swung the nunchakus around at tremendous speed, firing off shotgun shells and reloading them with the momentum of his attack. An incredible barrage of the shotgun blasts flew at Tristen, who swung his broadsword back and forth, blocking the shots and nunchaku hits at an equally impressive speed. The display of speed, firepower and defense had the audience roaring with pleasure again. Blake stood up to get a better look at the engagement, her eyes scanning every swing of a nunchaku, every deflection by Tristen's sword. In the stands, Yang's mouth was slightly agape, watching the rapidity and the ferocity of Sun's offensive being stopped by Tristen's defence. Tristen swivelled and ducked, barely being pushed back by such an unforgiving chain of attacks from Sun.
Sun finally stopped attacking many seconds later, angry and in disbelief. Not one hit had gotten through to his opponent. Not one. His nunchakus, Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang, had ran entirely out of ammunition. Sun looked up at his opponent.
A wave of dread and horror flushed through Sun.
Before him was every single shotgun shell he had fired, motionless, hanging in the air where Tristen had blocked them. Tristen had unequipped his broadsword again, hands in pockets, as the deafening cheers of the crowd had dropped to silence. Tristen chuckled, and moved a bang of hair out of his eye. "Well, Sun, that was...good. No, really. Interesting to watch!" Tristen exclaimed, whilst Sun stood silent in shock. "But not good enough, I'm afraid."
He sighed and slowly raised his hand, until his palm faced towards Sun. "You did pretty good though. I actually had to bring my weapon out. Didn't need it in the first round, you see?" Tristen continued, his casual voice unnerving Sun, who remained paralysed with shock. Tristen sighed."You know, I hate doing this bit. It's a real shame. But my orders were clear, unfortunately."
His opponent looked directly into Sun's eyes, almost apologetic. "Goodbye, Sun."
With a flick of his wrist, the mass of shotgun shells in front of Sun ripped backwards, peppering Sun with his own gunfire. Sun flew backwards from the impact of thirty shotgun shells colliding with his arms and torso, and slumped on the floor unconscious. Crimson blood pooled underneath him, staining his white button shirt. More blood oozed out of the puncture wounds which covered his chest and stomach, forming red trails that ran down his sides. Sun twitched a couple times, before lying motionless.
Yang watched in horror as Blake screamed and sprinted towards the arena, leaping down into the pit and skidding down next to Sun's body. Yang, Ruby and the rest scrambled to their feet and raced down the steps, barging past the masses of shocked spectators who had gotten to their feet. Men dressed in white overalls rushed out towards the arena, carrying a stretcher and various medical supplies. Blake was cradling Sun's head in her arms, calling out his name, desperate for some response. Any response.
Nothing.
The medics reached Sun's body, and hoisted him onto the stretcher. They began carrying him off quickly, even as Blake tried to cling onto him. Tears streamed down her face as she let go of his hand, and bent down to retrieve Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang from the jungle floor. She walked slowly out of the arena, sniffling, clutching Sun's blood-stained weapons to her chest.
Yang rushed to her partner and threw an arm around her, rubbing her back and wiping the tears from her pale cheeks. Ruby and the rest caught up, crowding around Blake to console their friend.
"I-I heard them. The m-medics." Blake whispered through her tears. Yang bowed her head to listen, clutching Blake's arm. "T-they're not sure if he's g-gonna...m-make it..." Blake finished, bursting into tears on Yang's shoulder again. Water brimmed up in Yang's eye at the sight of her distraught teammate. Weiss turned and raised her head to look at him, the monster who had done this.
Tristen walked away from the arena, hands in pockets. He disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, never caring to look back even once.