A/N: This was going to be the first half of the next chapter, but it felt better as a shorter chapter of its own.
"Yang, we need to talk about what happened."
She didn't respond. She just continued to gaze at the horizon outside the window in her private quarters. She lived in a small room in the higher levels of a tower on base. It afforded her quite the vantage view.
She lowered her attention down to the deck of Mother Base below. She scanned over everything, trying to get adjusted to her new handicap. Distance and depth are harder things to judge with only one eye.
She'd gotten it attended to, but there was no saving it. Her right side vision was gone. She now wore a patch holding a piece of gauze over the healing wound.
"Yang, are you listening?" Jaune prodded her as he stood in her doorway. "It's been almost a week and you've told us barely anything." No response. "I know you needed time to recover, but we need to know what happened in The Devil's House. What did you find there? How did Nari's brother die? What is Adam doing?" He stepped closer to her. "Yang, what happened to Blake?"
Yang continued gazing out the window when she finally spoke up. "Where's Ruby?"
Jaune huffed. She still didn't answer him. "She's in the field. She's trying to get back on her feet. She's picking up missions so you can take this time to recover."
"She never stops, does she?"
"... no. She doesn't," Jaune responded. "I'm not sure she can at this point."
"What happened?" the injured Huntress asked. "When did it all change?"
Jaune sighed and took a seat on the edge of Yang's cot. "It was a gradual thing. She's been in this fight for nine years. It's hit her hard. Hell, it's hit all of us hard."
"But you seem to have weathered it well," Yang noted.
Jaune shook his head. "Not always. Used to be the roles were reversed. After…" his voice trailed off. "After Pyrrha, I was the angry one. I was the one starving for vengeance and blood. Ruby was there for me."
Yang's interest piqued at his wording. "Did you two…?"
Jaune chuckled. "Yeah. Yeah, we did."
A smile, though weak, finally appeared on Yang's face. "Good on you, Rubes."
"Ha! As if I'm much of a catch." Jaune laughed heartily and stroked his mustache. "You know, the mustache was actually her idea. Said it'd complete the angry, sharpshooting, rogue appearance."
In spite of her somber mood, Yang couldn't help but laugh at that.
"Yeah, your sister really dragged me out of a dark place. Technically, we're still- I mean we never officially..." He sighed. "I'm not really sure anymore."
Yang's smile left as well. "When did she change?" she reiterated.
"It was about a year and a half ago: the eighth anniversary of the attack on Beacon. We'd been at this for eight years, and had little to show for it. We'd push the White Fang back in one place. They'd take over another. We'd take down a few officers, but lose just as many Huntsmen to do it. In spite of the bullets and blood and lives spent to end this war, nothing changed.
"Eight years in, Ruby came to that realization and it overwhelmed her. She just… she broke down. You can only hold onto hope for so long, I guess. It was sadness at first, then rage, and finally hate. By the time of her capture and… injuries, she was taking it personally."
"I wish I could have been there for her," Yang lamented.
"You were the one who rescued her."
"Yeah, but before that. If I hadn't gotten myself-"
"It couldn't be helped," Jaune interrupted her and stood back up. "The past is the past. All we can do now is try to make up for it." He turned to head for the door. "I'll give you some more time. When you're ready to debrief, let me know."
"Jaune?" Yang stopped him. "With Pyrrha… the feeling, I mean… did it ever go away?"
Jaune was quiet a moment. "I never really got over her. But it does hurt a lot less now."
"You've got to keep your right guard up," Weiss advised as Yang recovered from the blow. Normally, hand-to-hand sparring with the heiress would be a cakewalk. But now, it was getting embarrassing. It didn't help that she couldn't see half of the hits coming.
The norm was also for Yang to use this time between bouts to spout off some snarky taunt. There was often a pun involved somehow.
"Again," was all she said as she raised her fists up.
Weiss followed suit and advanced. She started with a few right jabs. Yang blocked those with no problem. A right-left-right combo. Blocked. Right-left-kick. Blocked with a return jab. Left-right-kick-left hook.
"Ah!" Yang was down again. The left hook got her every time.
"It's that right side still," Weiss noted.
When Yang looked back to the heiress, there was a fire in her eye. "No shit it's my right side! I can't fucking see it!" she shouted.
Weiss was put off for a moment. She paused as the one-eyed Huntress seethed in front of her and quickly readjusted. "We should take a break."
"No!" Yang retorted, raising her fists back up. "Let's go again. We'll keep going 'til I get it."
She advanced on the heiress and threw a right punch. Weiss stepped to the left of the swing, into Yang's blindspot, and, with both hands, shoved Yang to the ground.
"We're taking a break," the smaller girl commanded.
Yang paused to reflect. She unclenched her jaw and her fists, and let her iris revert back to lilac. "Yeah. Yeah, that- that sounds like a good idea."
Weiss helped her teammate up and the two walked silently to the side. They reached the wall of the sparring room and retrieved their water bottles. Yang only missed grabbing it once. She was improving.
After taking a moment to rehydrate, Yang slumped against the wall and slid down until she was seated on the floor. Her gaze drifted off to nothing in particular across the room.
"You know," Weiss spoke up as she joined her friend on the floor, "bottling it up won't make it feel better."
"Drop it, Weiss," Yang muttered.
"You're not stronger for facing it alone," the Atlesian girl persisted. "If you just talked about it-"
"I said, 'drop it.'" the angry Huntress commanded.
Weiss paused. Her expression changed and her posture shifted: straighter and more rigid. She held her chin higher and her eyes more narrowed.
"Well," her voice sounded exactly like it did during her first semester at Beacon. "I guess I overestimated you. And here I thought you were a Huntress."
Yang felt her body temperature rise at Weiss's remarks. "Weiss…" she growled, squeezing her water bottle tightly in her mechanical hand.
The heiress paid no mind and continued. "A true Huntress would have picked herself up and brushed herself off by now; not wallow in the mud for a week."
The bottle began to crack. "You're pushing it, Weiss."
"You know, there was a time when I thought highly of you. I thought you may have had what it takes to be a true Huntress. But it looks like I was wrong. It looks like you're just a little girl who isn't as brave and strong as she thought."
The bottle collapsed from the pressure, the water spilling all over the ground and Yang's hand. The blonde was on the verge of boiling over, but, realizing Weiss's game, restrained herself. She bottled it back up and stood. "I'm done for today. We'll try again tomorrow," she uttered as she paced to the door.
Weiss stood as well and watched her go. "What was it Blake ever saw in you?"
Boiling point. Yang's vision went red. Her hair lit aflame. She turned back to the Schnee heiress and unleashed a roar full of rage as she charged with her fist raised.
Weiss didn't so much as flinch. She stood there and took the punch. It was a powerful one, too, with repressed rage behind it. Her aura shattered, and she was knocked to the ground. Yang stood over her fuming. The heiress simply stood back up and stared back, undeterred. That was when Yang's barrier broke.
The distraught Huntress collapsed against her friend and all of the sadness and emotion that had been filling her up since her mission with Blake came rushing out. She cried hard. She cried harder than she'd ever cried before. She cried harder than she thought she was even capable of.
As she sobbed into her shoulder, Weiss raised her arms to cradle the pained Huntress. She put the act away. She did her job and didn't need to be the bad guy anymore. All she needed to do now was be there and listen.
"Why did it have to happen, Weiss?" Yang asked through her tears. "Haven't we been through enough?"
"I don't know, Yang. I don't know."
Weiss led the two to kneel on the ground as Yang continued to let it all out.
"It's not fair," the broken blonde continued. "Why did I have to lose her again?"
"Something happened at the Devil's House, didn't it?" the white-haired Huntress assumed.
Yang's sobbing began to die down. She answered, "Ren was right. Adam brainwashed her; blocked out her memories and replaced them with new ones. That's why she's like that. And he did it at the Devil's House."
"He was there, wasn't he?" Weiss pieced together.
Yang squeezed her tighter. The tears well up again. "All he had to do was whisper to her and she was snapped back into his trance."
The crying returned upon bringing the memory back up. Weiss waited for her to get it out.
When her teammate's sobbing died down again, she brought up a sneaking suspicion of hers. "That's not all that happened, is it?"
Yang thought back to the moment. Through the untamed sadness, a smile broke through. "We kissed," she softly admitted. "And it was wonderful."
Weiss wore a smile as well. "It's about time."
Yang's expression turned somber again. "And then…"
"Hey, hey, hey." Weiss pulled back to look Yang in the eyes. "Yang, you didn't lose her. She's still here. She's just a little mixed up again. But you helped her last time. You can do it again."
"But what if she doesn't… What if those feelings-"
"Those feelings are still there. She may not realize them yet, but they're still in there. You can't give up on her, Yang."
By this point, the tears had ceased to fall. Yang sniffed down the last of her depression and smiled. "Thanks, Weiss. I needed this." The two pulled each other into a hug. "I'm sorry I punched you."
"Yang, go debrief with Jaune" Weiss responded, "and then go see Blake. That's how you can make it up to me."
Yang nodded and broke the hug. "I will. But I've got a favor I need to ask of you."
"I'm listening," the heiress said.
"I need you to find someone. Adam mentioned a name that really set Blake off. It's clearly someone important to her."
A confident smile crossed Weiss's face. "Give me the name and I'll see what I can dig up."
A/N: I did decide to bump the rating of this up to M. With the last chapter, it just feels like a better fit for the tone.
