"You know, I expected you to break your promise, but not this soon," Weiss heard from behind her. She jumped back and saw that Ruby had somehow managed to sneak up on her.
"What is that supposed to mean?" She asked.
"You've been avoiding all of us ever since we got back. Didn't you promise me that if you ever needed anything you would come talk to me?"
Weiss' eyes narrowed. Had she really made such a stupid promise? "I don't need to talk to you. Leave me alone."
"I know that's not true," Ruby said. "I thought you said weren't going to lie to me either."
"I'm leaving," Weiss said and picked up the bag she had left on the ground.
"I'm going to get you to talk to me, no matter what," Ruby said and cut her escape route off.
Weiss tried to push past her, but Ruby held her in place. "Unless you plan on torturing me, good luck. I neither need nor particularly want to talk to you right now."
"How'd you guess," Ruby said, unfolding her scythe. Weiss took a step back.
What was going on with Ruby? She was even more unreasonable than usually. With the look she had in her eyes, Weiss was worried she was actually going to attack.
"Wait, I don't have any aura," Weiss said. "Are you really going to attack me while I'm like this?"
"I won't use any either," Ruby dismissed Weiss' only excuse. "Now, prepare yourself. I'm going to snap you out of this bitchy mood of yours and force you to talk to me."
"Damn it, Ruby," Weiss said through gritted teeth. "Keep your nose out of my business."
"Nope," Ruby said in a monotone voice. "Now, I would recommend defending yourself unless you want to get hurt."
Weiss barely drew Myrtenaster in time to block. Even without Ruby using her semblance, the power behind the scythe was enough to send Weiss flying back.
Were they really going to do this? It was beyond reckless, even worse than Ruby's usual plans. She concentrated and tried to figure out her partner's attacks.
Suddenly, her right arm felt numb. When she looked down, she saw that her sleeve was beginning to turn red.
"Are you even paying attention?" Ruby yelled before starting another attack. Weiss tried to meet it head on but was forced off with ease. She stumbled back with no idea where up was.
She quickly got her bearings and looked around, only to see Ruby using her scythe to prop herself up. She yawned theatrically "You know, it's not a lot of fun to fight someone who's not fighting back."
"I'm trying, but unless you haven't noticed, my options are a little limited right now." Weiss said and raised her sword.
"No, you're not," Ruby said. "I've seen you fight. This isn't it." She picked her scythe up. "How about we up the stakes? If you don't start fighting me seriously, I'll kill you for real."
It was painfully obvious to Weiss that Ruby was bluffing, but she didn't count out the possibility of her getting carried away and dealing a serious injury. "Ruby, your specialty is combat like this. Of course you're going to be superior to me when I don't have an aura to use glyphs. There's nothing I can do."
"At this speed even Jaune would be putting up more of a fight than you are," she said. "You don't have an excuse."
"I'm not looking for one! It's simply impossible for me to fight you like this."
"Yes you can!" Ruby yelled. They had been yelling for a while. "I feel like you're not even there, Weiss. I have to bring you back to the ground right here, right now."
Weiss shook her head. "What does that even mean?"
"I want my partner back and I'm going to force her out. Whoever's possessing you right now isn't going to be nearly enough for you to survive this."
Weiss was actually starting to get concerned for Ruby.
"I have no idea what you're thinking," she said.
"Exactly," Ruby said. "The you from a week ago could have guessed my exact thoughts right now. Doesn't it make sense to try to get inside the head of the person you're fighting? You just don't care enough to do it, isn't that right?"
"Ruby, this has gone on for long enough." Weiss said. "I'm leaving."
"I'm not going to let you," Ruby said. Weiss met her cold, grey eyes. Was that really the same Ruby she knew?
Looking down, Weiss saw a small pool of blood that had come from her arm. From the cut Ruby made.
She gripped her sword tighter. That wasn't Ruby in front of her. It was an enemy and she had to treat her as such.
Ruby ran forward without warning and they clashed, Weiss getting easily overpowered once again, but this time she expected it. She absorbed the momentum and rolled to the side.
Ruby grinned at her before pursuing.
Weiss quickly realized that fighting Ruby head on was impossible for her. Ruby's speed, strength, agility, dexterity, everything physical was vastly superior to Weiss'. As such, the only chance Weiss had was to outsmart her, something that was in no way easy, but at least it was possible.
Weiss noticed that Ruby's eyes were always following her, not even diverting to survey the battlefield. Normally that would have been a great lead, but Ruby knew the Beacon courtyard like the back of her hand. There was nothing Weiss could use against her.
Or was there? Was there something she was missing? Ruby was keeping her promise of fighting without her semblance, which meant that she wasn't nearly as quick.
Weiss thought back to the way Ruby fought. She used mostly hit and run tactics, which weren't nearly as effective without her incredible mobility. However, she still relied on inertia to give her attacks their weight. Normally she could fall back very quickly if an enemy managed to force back or sidestep her blows, but now she had no such advantage.
She wondered if there was some way she could break Ruby's inertia and step inside of the one and a half meter area around her that she couldn't reach with her scythe. As she met another of Ruby's slashes and her gaze fell to Myrtenaster.
Of course. She activated the rapier manually and blasted Ruby's scythe back with a small explosion.
Of course the recoil was very painful, however Ruby was slightly off balance and Weiss couldn't let that chance go. She quickly charged her and pushed the scythe she was trying to raise back down when she reached her and at the same time continued walking towards her, already inside the bubble Crescent Rose couldn't attack in and walking faster than Ruby could back up.
Then Ruby hit a wall and Weiss pressed her blade against the girl's neck.
"Are we done here?" she asked.
"You tell me," Ruby said, grinning. "How do you feel?"
A strange question, but Weiss decided to answer it. "Angry. How did you expect me to feel when you attacked me out of nowhere?"
"Is anger worse than how you felt before?"
Weiss opened her mouth to answer, but then she realized that it couldn't possibly have been.
Anger was certainly easier. A more basic emotion.
And more importantly, she had better things to do then mope around, feeling sorry for herself.
Sure, fighting Ruby made her angry, but winning actually made her feel... proud? Happy? She couldn't really figure it out but it didn't matter. It was good.
Maybe in her own weird way, Ruby had tried to look out for her. Even without knowing anything, she still managed to make her feel better. But still, what a stupid way to do it. It was almost like something Yang would do.
"So you and Yang aren't as different as you make it look on the outside," Weiss muttered. She wondered why she chose to say that our loud. It was a stupid thought. "In any case, I want to repeat this when I'm back to full power. Let's see what a real fight between us would look like." She said and turned to leave. She took five steps before the whole world spun and she fell to the ground.
"Do I want to know?" Yang asked when she saw her little sister carrying Weiss to the infirmary.
"I kinda may have inadvertently almost killed her," Ruby said in a small voice.
"What did you do?" Yang decided to go with understanding. If that didn't work, she was going to start yelling.
"Forced her to duel me and afterwards completely forgot that I cut her and she was bleeding out. I really hope we don't end up having to take care of teammates without aura anymore."
Hearing her sister say that was just too bizarre for Yang. "Who are you and what have you done with Ruby?"
"I grew up," Ruby answered immediately.
Yang didn't know how to answer that. Ruby was certainly becoming more and more mature each day, but was this really okay?
"Why did you duel her when she didn't have an aura?" She asked.
"Didn't you notice how depressed she's been looking lately? I thought it would cheer her up."
Sometimes Yang wondered if her sister wasn't actually an idiot. "Did you actually think that would work?"
"But it did. She was practically back to her old self before collapsing."
While they were talking they had already reached the infirmary. Ruby Carried Weiss in, while Yang decided she preferred to avoid that place and that horrible woman.
