A/N: This is the longest chapter so far so I hope you enjoy :) Also, a small recap of the end of the last chapter to start us off so the same warning for (not actually) suicidal actions.
A few hours of observing a student kill Grimm in the forest was a boring way to spend a Saturday, but it confirmed Qrow's suspicions and so was time (mostly) well-spent. A half-hour chatting with Oz on the best way to handle Lumi's case while taking into account her age and history was also time well-spent, especially since her detention sentence was drawing to an end.
Watching that same student jump off a fucking roof was a terrifying handful of seconds that no one with half an ounce of sense in them would call "time well-spent."
For her part, Lumi was too busy bemoaning her incredibly injured body to care much about time.
"I think you fractured my ribs," she pressed two fingers to the radiating ache in her chest and hissed when it throbbed in pain.
"You were two seconds away from breaking your stupid fuckin' neck and you're complaining about your ribs?!" Qrow was struck with urge to punt the miserable puddle of problem student halfway across campus.
"What?" she lifted her head to stare at him. "What do you mean? I was going to the cafeteria."
The urge doubled in intensity. "You jumped off a building."
She continued to stare at him. "Ye-s? What does- oh, oh wait, uhm, I get what you mean," she said slowly then melted through her shadow to appear on the other side of him. "My Semblance lets me travel through shadows- I wouldn't have even hit the ground."
He choked out something that might have resembled a sentence if language was over eighty percent cursing.
"Yeah, uh love you too and all but I am in serious pain and kinda hungry so if you could maybe get me something to eat, I would really appreciate it," "She pushed herself up slowly and gritted her teeth to hold back the shriek of agony that threatened to burst out of her. Ugh, she was going to skip class tomorrow if the miserable burn that punctuated every breath didn't let up by night fall.
She missed the dark, murderous look that crossed her teacher's face as she lumbered to her feet- which was for the best, really, because her previously calm mood was quickly souring and she was in no condition for a shouting match right now.
Qrow's fingers twitched towards his weapon but he had enough sense left in him that he didn't knock her across campus. She was definitely on cleaning duty when she returned to school though.
Lumi limped forward a step or two then stopped with a hiss. Walking shouldn't make her ribs ache but somehow it did. While she had been exaggerating about her ribs being fractured, she didn't actually know and if they hurt this bad… she yanked up the hem of her shirt.
"What the fuck!" He slapped his hand over his eyes.
"Look what you did to me!" she shrieked.
It was probably his Semblance's fault that this train wreck of events came to be, but that didn't stop him from cursing everything he knew. A quick peek out of the corner of his eye revealed the livid splash of red and purple across her pale skin, more so on the left than the right where his arms impacted her body.
"Is there a problem?" A strong, no-nonsense voice called off to the side.
Fuck his life- how did the situation get worse?
"No, no, it's fine," Lumi stressed through a tight smile and tugged her shirt down despite the twinge of agony that ran up her side.
"Uh-huh," the woman crossed her arms over her chest and looked between the two of them. Lumi was mess of mud and favored one leg while Qrow was clearly uninjured with a weapon strapped to his back. "What does a Huntsman need with a Beacon student anyway? Are you a scout?"
"We were sparring," the lie slipped easily from Lumi's lips. "But he doesn't really know his own strength, ya know?" she laughed sheepishly and brushed her bangs out of her face. "Everything's okay though, promise. We're just gonna call it quits for today." She channeled the most self-assured and cheery smile she could muster and subtly adjusted her body to look less ragged and worn.
"If you say so," she said mostly unconvinced, with a suspicious look to Qrow.
"I do," she chirped and bumped her shoulder- ow ow ow- against Branwen's side to (not so subtly) hint that he needed to wrap his arm around her in a show of solidarity. "But thank you for your concern!"
The other woman hummed and slowly walked away. Lumi maintained her wide smile and turned her body to fit better under Branwen's arm as she chattered about something meaningless. When she was out of sight, Lumi sighed and slumped against her teacher.
"So that's how you do it," Branwen mumbled to himself and stared down at her.
"Hm?" She looked up.
"Never mind," he shook his head.
She rolled her eyes. "Don't be so cryptic, Branwen," she chastised. "And anyways, you owe me a roll of bandages and some Hot Ice."
"Do I now?" He raised a brow at her.
"Yes," she insisted and used her thumb to jab him. "My ribs were perfectly fine until you slammed me out of the sky."
He grimaced. "Why don't you just heal yourself?"
She looked away with a sour expression. "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't?" His arm tightened of its own accord.
"Let go," she hissed and drove a knuckle between two of his ribs. "And I can't because I'm out of aura."
He let her squirm away. "Out of aura?"
Ugh, could he make an original sentence? "Yeah," she huffed. "Or you could buy me something to eat- I'm not picky."
He turned his head back to the clock tower and mouthed "what the fuck" at the security camera. He didn't have enough mental energy to deal with all this- especially not after the heart attack she'd given him.
"Whatever, I'll get you something to eat. Go see the school doctor, kid," he flicked her forehead and walked off.
She grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like "asshole" but shadow-stepped away before he could retaliate. She was most definitely not going to the school doctor but she had pain pills, Hot Ice and bandages in her room- though she wouldn't complain if Branwen brought her extras with the food. It was always good to have back stock.
It was half past eleven, which meant that her dad was either still asleep or had woken up and retreated to the study- either way she didn't have to be too quiet. Her back was a mess and her ribs were worse, but the numbing sensation of the Hot Ice was a welcome one. She wrapped herself like a mummy and slipped on a clean shirt then knocked back a couple of Tyrianols and raided the fridge for her father's delicious barbeque pulled pork.
She hummed in joy at the taste then shadow-stepped back to the same spot she left from.
"Did you cough up blood?" Branwen shouted at the sight of her.
Lumi hastily wiped her mouth. "No, it's barbeque pork."
She'd probably given him something like three heart attacks to- "Wait, if you could get food, why'd you make me buy you some?" He narrowed his eyes at her.
"You slammed me out of the sky," she deadpanned.
"You jumped off a fuckin' building," he threw a pack of donuts at her.
Lumi sighed and ripped open the bag. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She really didn't need to get into another argument with him.
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "punk ass student" but she was too busy devouring the three tiny donuts to care much. He shoved a poorly wrapped sandwich into her hands after that, then a bottle of apple juice.
"Oh, yeah, what are you doing at Beacon anyways, Branwen?" she finally thought to ask halfway through the juice.
He motioned vaguely, "I was talkin' to Oz."
She racked her brain for a moment, "The… headmaster?" That would explain how he saw her jump off the roof- you could see everything from the top of the tower.
"Yup," he stuck his hands in his pockets. "You good now?"
"Yeah," she shifted her weight to her other leg, winced, shifted it back. "I think I'll go to the library for a little."
"Alright, don't jump off anymore buildings, kid," he said, mostly (completely) serious.
"Mmhmm, love you too, bye," she waved and shadow-stepped away.
He got halfway back to Ozpin's office before it hit him. "Wait, did she say 'love you'?"
Lumi did not in fact go to the library. Instead, she went home, lounged about for half an hour, hopped in the bath for scalding hot soak then got out and shoveled four plates worth of food into her face. Her father was well used to her habit of clearing the fridge so he snagged a serving and let her be.
She popped back to her mother's place ten minutes 'til two like she promised and spent the next couple of hours doing homework or watching TV. When she was properly home, she went straight to her room and passed out. The Tyrianols kicked in at her mother's which helped her not cringe at every breath, but sleeping would regenerate aura more quickly.
When she woke up two hours later, she checked her aura levels with her Scroll and swore- four percent! She didn't expect to be full up, but she had been hoping for maybe eight or ten percent to be back. Her sleep-addled mind stumbled along a logical train of thought to rationalize the low level of regeneration.
Two major injuries, a smattering of smaller ones, and a short two hour nap- not exactly ideal conditions. The rate at which her aura replenished must be just slightly higher than the rate at which it healed her many, many hurts. Also, if any bones had fractured or if her organs had taken a hit then that would have been another major drain on her energy.
Lumi groaned, healed what little she could, and dragged herself out of bed, once again at basically no Aura. Not for the first time, she wished aura was smart and healed major injuries first, but it and her traitorous body healed everything at the same rate unless she made it do otherwise.
Her loving family- the ones who didn't let her get smacked around my monsters- were watching a movie and the lights were low. Nocte and Ash, bless their hearts, saved her a pizza so she snagged it and gently lowered herself onto the armchair. She happily munched on cheesy goodness and between one blink and the next it was suddenly an hour and a half later.
"Go to bed, star light," her dad murmured and curled one arm around her shoulders to help her out the seat.
She hummed and leaned against him all the way to her room, then she crawled under the blankets and fell asleep before her head hit the pillow. The next few hours were a hazy mess- she got up a few times to go to the bathroom, maybe, and get something to drink- she also must have turned off her alarm at some point because when she woke up it was midmorning.
Her body creaked miserably so before she got up she spent all of her Aura on healing. Now that she had time to focus inwards, she could tell that yes, Branwen had definitely fractured her ribs, but only three of them and the cracks were thin enough that with a little focus they vanished completely.
Still, maybe she could guilt-trip him into buying her Stirbucks?
First though, she had to get out of bed, and get dressed, and then get on the airbus to Patch and wow that seemed like an awful lot of work; hadn't she already missed first period? It would be so much easier, and probably better for her health, if she stayed home and healed up…
But, her traitorous brain reminded her, Branwen had seen her bruised and limping, so she should probably put in the effort to get to school by lunchtime and re-assure him that she hadn't died before he did something dramatic like get Mrs. Huang to schedule an at home counseling session.
Still, she lazed in bed for another half hour or so before she found the strength to get up- for real this time. She first dragged herself to the kitchen to brew coffee and grab a snack, then back to her room to get ready. Dressed in a semi-decent outfit consisting of a long sleeved top and a wool skirt over tights, she tucked her charger into her backpack, shrugged on a coat, swept through the kitchen for her drink and then was off to the bus stop.
On her ride to the Midtown Transit Center, she thought about how was easy it was to look put together when wearing a skirt or dress, even if very little actual effort went into the outfit altogether. By the time she arrived at Signal, there were twenty minutes left of second period, which was P.E. with Mr. Xiao Long and ha ha ha, no. She strolled over to her literature class instead and waited outside the door until the lunch bell rang.
In the pandemonium, she made sure to slip her late homework into the first period tray then follow the crowd to the cafeteria where she ran into Yang- again.
"Hey, stranger," Yang nudged her.
Lumi smiled at her. "Hey."
"Whatever happened to 'let's hang out soon'?" she teased.
"I'm free now," Lumi countered.
"Great," she led her to an empty table. "So am I."
They caught up over lunch, with Yang's friends filling the rest of the space. Lumi told her about the disastrous Sunday she'd had (then quickly reassured her that she was back to perfect health, even if that wasn't exactly the truth) and followed it up with talking about her gravity dust boots and how she used them to demolish kids her age when she was up north.
Here, Yang got a gleam in her eye and Lumi felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise up.
"So, those kids up north… any of them cute?" Yang leaned in with an eager grin. "Did you guys start a bonfire? Have to huddle close for warmth?"
Oh; oh no.
"Not, exact-ly…" Lumi looked away with a grimace; her last relationship hadn't exactly ended well. "Uh, I guess some of them were cute? And we did get invited to a party, but we didn't end up going because we had to get up early and pack."
She blew out a breath. "Boring! What's the point of a vacation if you don't make out with a few strangers? Ya know, like a whirlwind romance under the stars!"
What the hell, Yang? Aren't you like, fifteen?
"Sounds, uh, fun but I guess I'm just a boring person," she drawled and shoved a few chips in her mouth to avoid talking more.
"That's not what I heard," she said slyly and winked.
Oum above, what now?
"And what have you heard?" If Claret was running his mouth again she was going to-
"Well, a friend of mine was talking about throwing a party on Saturday 'cause her parents are going out of town," she twirled a lock of hair. "And I heard that you could get drinks, so…" She looked at Lumi with expectant eyes and a smile.
Well fuck. Lumi only sold to people she could be mostly sure wouldn't toss her name about, and if Yang was friends with one of her clients, and that client name-dropped her then that implied a certain level of trust between her client and Yang- meaning Yang for sure knew that Lumi could and would get booze. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.
Contrary to the wild pace her mind was running at, her face was sculpted into a nonchalant expression. "I might be able to," she said. "But that's not really a conversation you want to be having at a crowded lunch table."
She looked around and her smile grew a little wider. "So is that a yes?"
Ah, to be young and not paranoid. "It's a maybe. Show up at the track afterschool and I'll see what I can do."
"Cool!" Yang picked up her lunch and started eating again.
Lumi waited out the rest of the hour with her nerves gradually settling in the pit of her stomach. Yang was more than happy to talk enough for the both of them and bid her a sunny goodbye when the bell rang.
Well, money was money, she rationalized to herself as she trudged to class. As long as Yang didn't accidentally rat her out (which was her biggest worry about the whole thing considering that the girl had a teacher for a dad and a teacher for an uncle), she didn't really care who she was selling to.
She wasn't much in the mood for banter, but she strolled into the weapons workshop and bumped against Branwen the same way Yang did to her. "My ribs were fine, by the way, just a little cracked."
He looked down at her and raised a brow. "And you're telling me this, why?"
"It'd make me feel better if you'd get me a gift card from Stirbucks," she smiled innocently.
"Or you could sit down and I won't fail you," he shot back with a mocking smile.
Well, she tried. "I'm hurt, Branwen, real hurt." She said with a hand to her heart then walked away. Just for show, she laid her head on the table and sighed loudly in his general direction. He didn't say anything, and tried to act like she wasn't sitting ten feet away, looking sad and pathetic. (Prick, she'd definitely remember this for later.)
Despite the morning healing and big lunch, Lumi was still incredibly sore and not a little achey so her sighs weren't completely fake, but she powered through it by funneling her Aura into healing more quickly as classes dragged on. When the last bell rang, she was only mildly sore as she made her way to the track.
She set her Scroll's microphone to record and waved at Yang as the other girl jogged through the throng of students. It was easy enough to figure out what she wanted (a twelve pack of wine coolers, case of beer, bottle of vodka and pink lemonade mix), then rattle off the cost and confirmed that it was for Ming's party on Saturday.
All in all, it took about fifteen minutes. Lumi told Yang to show up to the pool on Friday with Ming and payment in hand, then stopped recording and waved goodbye to the excited blonde. She shadow-stepped into the hallway just around the corner from the weapons workshop, and immediately smashed her nose into a warm wall.
She had just enough sense to throw her arms up in front of her when a sharp elbow sent her to the ground and a heavy foot smashed against her shoulder.
"Oh fuck," she groaned and then-
"Lumi?"
She opened her eyes and followed the long, lean line of leg up to the ceiling, "Branwen?"
"What the hell are you doing?" he removed his foot from her shoulder.
"You're heavy," she hissed as she rose on an elbow. "And I was trying to get to your class."
"Little off there," he looked at the door to the class then back at her.
"I figured," she grumbled. "Anyways, usually no one's in this hallway, so I don't have to check where I appear."
He hummed but made no move to help her pick up her scattered belongings (yeah, she was going to get him for this). He did extend an arm to her as she rose on her knees, at least, so she took the peace offering and pricked her aura against his as the mild form of retribution.
She snickered when his aura reflexively flared to life against an enemy that didn't exist.
"Punk," he shook her off.
This time she hummed, which Branwen rolled his eyes at. She followed him into the classroom, shrugged off her coat and tossed it onto the table along with her bag.
"Why're you late anyways?" he called from his desk.
"I had to finish healing the fractures in my ribs," she lied in an attempt to make him feel bad. "But little did I know that you'd brutally assault me the moment I was done and bruise me more."
He scoffed. "I doubt that even hurt you."
Lumi tugged the wide, low neck of her shirt over her shoulder to show the red mark there.
He sighed. "Whatever, kid," he held up a stack of papers. "You have work to do."
"Sir yes sir, Mr. Branwen," she said, regretting the fact that she ever offered to help him grade.
He gagged. "Ugh, I thought I told you not to call me 'sir'," he shoved the work into her hands.
"Of course, my apologies…sir," she curtsied and bit back a smile.
"Mm," he eyed her like he wanted smack her upside the head for her cheek.
She wisely chose to retreat and start grading. She finished early and just barely managed to restrain herself from saying "here you go, sir" when she handed back the papers. On the ride back home, she stared out at the water and nearly fell asleep as the soothing tide rose and fell.
Even though she'd only been at school for half the day, it felt like she'd been there for far longer because of all the aura she'd used to patch herself up from Branwen's two unexpected attacks and her own injuries from the weekend. She wondered if being unexpectedly attacked would be a new thing for the two of them, then immediately hoped with all her heart that that wasn't the case. Branwen was a tried and true Huntsman and she wasn't even technically a Huntress-in-training yet- she'd never survive if she had to worry about two Hunters' attacks.
Saf's order had returned to its normal size, though whether that was because the issue with her parents' divorce had settled or because she realized (after Lumi wrapped a pamphlet for AA around a bottle of bourbon) that drinking so heavily couldn't end well, she wasn't sure but also didn't really care.
Lumi delivered the familiar order during lunch, collected the waiting stack of lien, then stashed Yang's order beneath the bed and stepped back into the bathroom stall she'd used to hide what she was really doing. There were a little less than ten minutes left of lunch, so she decided to head to class a little early.
Branwen was sitting at his desk, listlessly shoveling microwaved lasagna into his mouth. She allowed herself a moment of pity for her poor bachelor teacher, then remembered that she had a list of recipes she'd written for him last month and had forgotten to bring in- oops. Well, by her calculations next week was her last week of detention so she'd bring it then to commemorate.
She snagged an evaluation form from his desk and retreated to her seat- a different one from detention. Yesterday had been the first of March, so this would be their next to last eval before they graduated in late May. She wondered if the brat who bought a new weapon for every evaluation would keep that up for two more years, then decided that no, probably not. Not if they were serious about becoming a Hunter, anyways.
On the other hand, they could also just be at Signal for the prestige of the school's name so they could join the police force. Either way, it was wasteful to buy so many weapons when a baton and handgun were all they really needed, but it wasn't her problem so she wouldn't interfere- the brat would learn or they wouldn't.
She had more important things to focus on, like how to reconstruct Polaris to have a lethal close-range form in the time between this weekend's visit and next weekend's, or even if she should. There was some merit to leaving Polaris as it was and picking up a second weapon, but keeping herself to one weapon and giving it three forms was equally good.
The new form or new weapon would have to be a blade of some kind, because her problem last week was that blunt force was no good against a King Taijitu- it didn't have limbs or joints she could aim for. It also tracked by scent unlike other Grimm that mostly relied on sight or sound, so even hopping from shadow to shadow hadn't saved her for long. She might've been fine if she had a partner to distract it, but her mother refused to step in unless it looked she was about to die.
Lumi shook her head and filled out the form as her classmates started streaming in. With three years' experience it was almost reflex and because she came in early, she was the first to finish. The rest of school passed fairly quickly after that, until she was back in Branwen's class, pockets full of lien from her latest transaction.
The teacher in question wasn't there, so she took his seat and wiggled the mouse to wake up the computer. She rifled through the things on his desk until found the evaluation forms for her class then opened up the program that held the schedule for evaluations. This, too, was nearly reflex because not only did Branwen make her file the forms, he made her put them in order and write the time each eval was supposed to be at in the top right corner.
She could attest to the fact that he did a lot of weapon evaluations, especially during the first year, so it made sense that he'd gotten sick of having to do all this work for every class' round of evals and had thus dumped it onto her.
He stomped into the workshop almost midway through the hour, a murderous expression on his face and blue ink smeared not only across his features, but down the top of his shirt and all over his left arm.
"I need you to order more fire dust, and put in a request for a new printer," he said and furiously pumped the soap dispenser. No soap came out except for a bubble or two.
"COME ON!" he shouted and turned the water on- or tried to. The "hot water" knob came off, which he looked defeated at then tried the "cold water" knob. It worked, which he grimaced at but stuck his brightly colored hands into the stream anyways.
Lumi watched him, then quietly asked, "Did you set the printer on fire?"
"No," he said with disgust. "But I will when I'm not fuckin' blue."
"Maybe don't do that, Mr. Branwen?" she got up and went searching through the cabinets in the vain hope that he'd finally ordered more rubbing alcohol- no such luck. "I'm sure the principal won't be happy if you do."
"It'll make me feel a hell of a lot better," he scrubbed harshly at his (sadly) still blue skin.
She pursed her lips. "I tell you what, Branwen, I'm going to go get some rubbing alcohol from Nurse Tanner and in return you don't set the printer on fire. Instead try to find some clean rags, please?"
He grumbled something indistinct that didn't sound like he agreed with her plan, so she quickly melted into the shadows and appeared in the infirmary. The lights were off, which she took to mean that Nurse Tanner had gone home, but didn't let that stop her. She flipped on one light, ransacked the cabinets for rubbing alcohol and cotton rounds, turned the light off and stepped back into the weapons workshop.
Her teacher had three bottles of fire dust in hand and was still bright blue.
"Hey, Branwen, I'm back," she said and cheerfully held up her hands despite the fact that she was screaming internally. "Let's get you cleaned up, hm?" She strolled forward and tried to block his line of sight with the door.
He looked between the rubbing alcohol in her hands and the dust in his for a tense moment, then set the dust down. He stomped over to his desk, threw himself into his seat then leaned his head onto one fist. "Whatever, let's get this over with."
Thank Oum, because if it came down to it there was no way she could restrain him.
Lumi dragged a stool over and picked up a few mostly clean rags on the way. She unscrewed the bottle and was hit with the scent of menthol. Her eyes watered but she dutifully doused a rag in the liquid and passed it to her disgruntled teacher. He scrubbed at his left arm while she neatly folded a second one and poured more alcohol on it. She handed it to him when he threw aside the first, stained one.
His effort to remove the blue ink was a little less vicious so she spoke up, "I think I can get the stain out of your shirt, if you'd like."
He grunted and unclipped his cape then undid the buttons of his shirt. "Don't ruin it."
"Alright," she prepped another rag for him then took the fabric and went to the sink. While she soaked the collar, she started rambling about the many theories about aura, all the while keeping her voice low and steady. When she finished with the shirt, she rinsed it with cold water and laid it on a stool to air dry.
"-but modern scholars think that aura color is linked to our semblance because of the trend of individuals with similarly colored auras having similar types of abilities," she retook her seat at his side and grabbed the cotton rounds. "Would you like me to get the back of your neck?"
He shrugged and spun around. "Similar how?"
Lumi calmly placed her off hand at juncture of his shoulder and wiped the blue at the base of his hairline. "They took a survey where they gave people a color wheel and had them pick what color their aura was, like sunset orange or buttercream yellow, and then describe their semblance using words from a list." She grabbed another cotton round and continued. "There were categories like 'elemental,' 'active' and 'motion-based.' When they did an analysis on all of the responses, they found that…"
On she went, though she made sure to pepper in questions asking if he was okay. She stopped to grab her water bottle when she got to his jaw, then picked up with details about new research from Atlas about aura potentially being stored and transferred, like how blood was donated.
"There's some worry about people being aura compatible, but there's more concern about the fact that aura's difficult to capture in the first place." She said and scrubbed lightly at his cheekbone. "Only people with good control can willingly donate aura, but it doesn't like to stick around for long outside of the body so that's a problem too. Actually, there's a lot of problems, but those are the main- two? Three? They're kind of linked." She waved air at his twitching eye to dissipate the menthol-scented alcohol.
"Whatever you do in life," he half-slurred. "Don't ever volunteer to be part of an Atlesian study."
"Uh, okay?" Odd that he was slurring despite not drinking, but it wasn't really a concern considering that she had one hand cradling his jaw. "Close this eye, please," she tapped the side of his head with one finger. "Good, now where was I? Oh yeah, problems with aura transfusions. Some people have theorized that transfusions within the same color family will work best because…"
By the time she finished getting the blue off of his face, her throat was starting to hurt and he was as calm as she'd ever seen him- a little too calm actually. Aside from her throat being strained, she felt the same sort of tired that came from using aura but… she hadn't used aura? She pursed her lips and grabbed her scroll to check, only to find that her levels were not at full.
"Well, fuck," she swore quietly then cleared her throat and called, "Hey, Branwen, are you awake?"
His head jerked up and he blearily looked at her, "Yeah, uh-huh."
"Did you fall asleep?" Her brows rose of their own accord.
"Nah," he said with a yawn.
He totally did, but the question was why? Rubbing alcohol wasn't exactly a soothing scent even if it was menthol, and she'd been cleaning ink from his face. That should have kept anyone awake, even if she'd played the part of a white noise machine as she rambled.
Well actually, maybe that was it- she'd bored him to sleep with her voice or he found the subject of aura studies incredibly boring. But rambling about a dry topic shouldn't have been enough, he'd have to think her so little a threat even when leaking aura (?) that he could fall asleep without worrying about an attack.
Wonderful. Her ego shrunk to the size of a grape and she hurried home with a bright, embarrassed blush on her face.
A/N: Aw, they do care about each other- how cute! Now if only there was a way they could get on the same page... Well, next chapter is basically just scenes of the two of them being cute, so look forward to that!
Also, this chapter is really long but I could write way more on Aura as a science/art/study- I might just, actually. If anyone wants to theorize with me, shoot me a review or PM or something.
See you next week!