XSRA's Flame Chapter 38: At Least there's Only One
Xera POV
"Yes."
Part of me wanted to keep that a secret, but I knew I had to tell them eventually. I'm surprised none of them caught on immediately when he was first announced.
Anna grimaced at the thought and stared defiantly at me, "There's no way, how can a guy like that be related to you?"
"Pretty sure he's killed people." Rideat added absently as he cut a piece of his steak off.
"Where did you get steak?" Rex spoke up, apparently not interested in the prior conversation anymore. After Rideat jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the lunch line, Rex strolled off purposefully on a mission of great importance.
Or so he muttered.
"What do you mean he's killed people?" Weiss spoke up.
Rideat shrugged and continued eating, "Just rumors."
"You can't just say something like that if it might not even be true!" The heiress exclaimed, sending a piercing glare at the blind faunus… with no effect considering the obvious.
I do not like where this conversation is going, maybe there's still a chance to let it die? "Rumors are just rumors, there's no need to worry about this. I trust my brother."
"Ah, so you are related." Yang stated.
"I don't think it's by blood though, like Yang and I." Ruby piped up through a mouth full of cookies.
I nodded in understanding and as confirmation, "Pretty much sums it up. He's my adopted brother. A good one too, as far as big brothers go."
"How so?" Blake inquired, quietly snapping her book closed and placing it on her lap. Her hidden cat ears twitched beneath her bow slightly, which have been tuned into the conversation for a while now actually.
Right, I really haven't talked much about all this. She's probably been curious about it but hasn't pushed the subject.
"Well, for starters he was brought into the family when I was only one year old. I just sort of accepted him, you know? After a while we got close and we eventually became as close as brothers can get. We looked out for each other." I stated, though my eyes remained locked on the interesting details of my bottle of ginger ale.
"We always had each other's backs every time we got in trouble wondering around town, which was more often than not considering we liked training in the streets of Vale."
"Training? You mean you trained to be a huntsman in the middle of a city?" Pyrrha asked politely, starting a few other nods from around the table.
I shook my head slightly, though it was partially true. "Zerath and I needed to be able to get out of tight situations, especially since we couldn't exactly afford food at the time. We would run along the rooftops, scale walls using people's windows as foot holds, we would even race to see who could climb the bell tower the fastest. It was all for the thrill but also to keep ourselves fit just in case."
They all nodded in slight understanding, some more so than others. "So you guys did parkour. How did that lead to you becoming a huntsman?" Jaune asked curiously, but he did seem interested in an answer, as well as some others.
"My fighting style relies on being light on my feet and using the environment to my advantage. All swordsmen have to have an understanding of their surroundings, especially since it's strategic to use one's surroundings as a weapon in a fight." I stated, but more so to help Jaune out since he's also a swordsman.
"Cool, so it's like what I do! When I fight, I see a wall and I just have to slam my attacker into it with as much force as possible!" Nora proclaimed excitedly.
"Not exactly but it is kind of similar… in the slightest way possible. He means that he would use a wall to kick off of and dodge attacks, or use obstacles as ways of gaining an advantage." Ren explained to his bubbly partner.
I stared amused at the outburst but she wasn't entirely wrong. Walls make for some very useful target zones. "So, that eventually led to my mom training us with actual blades. It was a lot of fun too, we even had our own preferred style. Zerath really excelled with the bigger swords, like his claymore. He liked using force with his attacks. I preferred to be as fast as possible, so I like wielding two swords. Leona was proficient with every blade so she trained us."
"How did you end up with Annivia's Talons?" Blake asked.
My amused smile wavered slightly and Blake caught it easily. "I'm sorry, I was just curious."
"No, don't be." I interrupted reassuringly. "It really shouldn't be a sore topic, it's just that I made them after Leona passed away. She never got the chance to see my first creation."
Blake gave an understanding smile, as did the rest of the table.
"Anyway, I'm not really one for celebrations so I'm just going to head to my dorm room." I grabbed my soda and headed off toward the doors.
Standing by those same doors was a lone figure flipping through the pages of a white book some might even call it a tome or grimoire. Usually they hold powerful secrets within their pages, but I hadn't the slightest clue for its past or of its wolf-faunus owner.
"That was a beautiful speech, Xera. I too have a sister, though we are like your brother in more ways than we like to admit." She started as I stopped alongside her, slightly curious as to why she listened in.
Destiny finally cast her gaze up to me and locked slightly serious eyes, "Be careful. I'm sure you already know this but there is a dark power coming from your brother. Everyone else might be too blind to have seen it but it was clear as day… he's not normal."
She walked away without another word to go wherever it was Fate decided to take her. It was almost strange as she was walking off it looked like her hair had changed colors to a bright red.
Wait what?
I took a second look but it was its usual black hair that I recognized from the cue room. That was Destiny alright, but she seemed different somehow. I guess that's one more person who's suspicious about Zerath.
I wonder what she figured out about him. I looked away and figured she was just able to observe well enough to assume. Although, I swear I saw her hair change. Then again, maybe not. Shrugging, I passed it off for now as nothing and continued off to my dorm, although my eyes usually don't play tricks on me.
Skyla POV
"He's been kind of distant lately." I heard Blake add after Xera walked out of the cafeteria.
"I thought he was always kind of distant." Yang asked.
"Well, more than usual." Blakey countered, but apparently in a way not to start an argument.
Now that I think about it, he usually likes to hang out with us even though we can go a little crazy with conversation. I think I've even heard him chuckle at times. Even if he's distant, he's always right there to pitch in a witty comment or two. But lately, Blake's right. In the tournament, he wasn't even paying attention to half the matches.
"It's like he's been in thought lately. I don't even think he was focusing on any of the fights in the arena today." I added.
"Wait. So he wasn't even trying in his fight today?" Jaune asked accusingly.
I just shrugged my shoulders, "He still won. Maybe he'll be good to go after tomorrow."
After all, tomorrow I have another trip planned for ice cream. Maybe it'll lighten his mood once he hears about what happens. There will be something crazy, it's inevitable.
*SLAM!*
I jumped slightly and let out a small "EEP" at the sound of something loud slamming onto the end of the table.
"Guess what I found!" Rex called out from behind said object.
"Seriously!? How do you guys keep finding these kind of things in the lunch line!?" Weiss exclaimed, staring with wide eyes at what lay before all of us.
"I don't know but I don't care! Let's eat it!" I called out, immediately being backed up by my secondary partner in crime.
"YEAH!" Nora screamed by my side.
Rex just laughed and pulled out a rather big knife. It would have been scary if not for what lay on the table. With a swift slice, Rex tore the knife through the huge structure and ended it with a clang as the blade struck solid table.
A few more cuts later and we all were in possession of one of the most favorable things I've ever seen in this cafeteria.
CAKE!
Xera POV
I woke up with a start as I shot up in my bed in a cold sweat. My chest pounded as I breathed heavily and stared down at my sheets. Slowing my breathing and heart, I glanced at the clock on the nearby dresser.
Huh, around 2 AM.
With a silent sigh I looked around the room and noticed everyone else seemed to be sleeping contentedly. I crept out of my bed and made my way over to closet and grabbed a sweatshirt, then silently went over to the shared dresser between by Rex and me.
After another peak over my shoulder, everything was good to go. I didn't want to risk any potential noises so I swiftly switched sweatshirts and changed into my usual casual clothes and sneakers.
I grabbed my scroll and left the room quietly, making my way toward Beacon's cliffs and the emerald forest. As I strolled down the dim halls I let my thoughts wander and explore thinking back on Destiny's foreboding words earlier that day.
I can't believe today rolled around so quickly. I guess I got distracted by everything that's been going on that I lost track of time. It doesn't matter though, it's the same deal as before. It has only been five years after all.
My thoughts came to an end as I just barely evaded bumping into someone walking the other way.
"Oh, sorry about that. Didn't think anyone else would be up at this time." He stated as he gave me a once over, he didn't seem to be tired.
"Nah, it was my fault. What are you doing up anyway?" I asked, looking at the unfamiliar teen before me. Does he even go to Beacon? I don't recognize him. He didn't look older than 16 or 17 so he might just be another first year.
He just shrugged his shoulders and met my eyes with his own blue ones. "Can't sleep. I take it you have the same reason?"
I nodded my head but I still looked at him curiously. "Do you attend Beacon?"
"Of course." He said coolly, but his eyes never left my own which happened often unfortunately, but it still made me feel uncomfortable.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone's eyes change to so many colors before." He said, taking a closer look at me.
I just rolled my eyes and fell back on my usual brief explanation for that reason, "Yeah, they reflect emotions. It kind of gets annoying if you're around someone who can read what each color means."
I put my hands in my pockets as I remembered the countless times Skyla called me out whenever I wanted to remain silent about something. It would be pretty funny… if she was accurate and could actually get what each color means correct.
"Whoa, that's pretty cool. Mine are just blue." He said as he finally leaned away from me and ran a hand through his white hair.
Wait, I swear Skyla brought something up about seeing someone with white hair and not a Schnee.
Alright, white hair, black jeans, black sneakers, white t-shirt. Yup, no doubt about it.
"So, no cloak and mask today?" I asked subtly as I began walking again.
He immediately fell into line beside me and walked toward wherever I was going too.
"What gave me away?" The white haired guy asked curiously.
I just pointed up toward my own hair in a suggesting gesture and turned the corner, working my way to the locker room.
"Oh right, I guess Weiss is the only other person with white hair here huh?"
He speaks like he's friends with her. But I've never once seen him with her before let alone anywhere around school.
"I take it you know her?" I asked as we approached the locker room and made our way inside.
He looked away and decided to look around the room, "Yeah, I guess you could say that."
I opened my locker and pulled out Annivia's Talons and strapped them onto my back before closing the locker.
"No armor?" He asked as he finished looking around.
"Don't need it." I stated but I was having a hard time getting any kind of read off this guy. "Weiss never mentioned you before."
He chuckled sheepishly at that, "It's a long story if you want to hear it. But are you Xera Stark? You fought in the tournament right?"
I nodded and walked out the door, he seemed interested on following.
"When you were fighting, you used a semblance that looked a lot like one of my friend's semblances from where I come from. They were almost perfectly identical." He continued as he fell in line with me again.
"Really? So you're friends with Blake too then." There's something off about him but I can't seem to put any reason behind my suspicions.
"Sort of. My friends are very similar to your friends." He explained vaguely. "Anyway, mind if I ask where you're going at a time like this?"
Changing the subject, I guess I could ask more about it later. "Mountain climbing." I stated vaguely.
"At a time like this? There's bound to be plenty of grimm out there, especially around the nearby mountains. Which one are you heading for?" The teen asked.
He seems familiar with the area, "The snowy one."
"No fair, there's two of those." He complained, which was kind of amusing.
"Mount Kenna." I supplied with a slight smile.
He went silent for a second but still continued walking with me as we approached a courtyard which led to an abrupt cliff side.
"There's a lot of old grimm there, undoubtedly some very powerful ones. Why would you go there?" He asked as we looked out from atop the cliff. It was still dark but the shattered moon and the starts lit up the night sky as we looked out toward a lone mountain. The darkened trees a couple hundred feet below us filled the gap between the single standing rock face and us.
"There's something I need to see at its summit today." I said solemnly. "You know, I never caught your name." I added, looking over to him.
He smiled and crossed his arms, "The name's Dante. And I'm going with you."
I was a little taken aback by that, why would he come with me even if he knew it was so dangerous. "It's a deadly trek. Why waste the energy?"
Dante just shrugged and looked amused, "I have nothing better to do today."
I was hoping to go alone, but I guess a little company couldn't hurt. I turned Blake down because this was something I thought I had to do alone, but I guess I just didn't want her to see what's out there. Not yet anyway. This guy though. He's a total stranger…
…
What could possibly go wrong?
"Alright then." A few seconds after those words left my mouth I fell backward off the edge of the cliff. I let myself fall for a couple feet before continuing my flip backward and kicking off the cliff face and clearing away from its wall.
To my right I noticed Dante enjoying his own free fall. Neither of us seemed deterred by the speed of which we were plummeting toward the ground. After all, we were at Beacon and that means we always had to be prepared to have a landing strategy.
I flipped forward and dove downward, hopefully reaching the ground well before he did. With a look over my shoulder I noticed he was well behind me now and was watching me curiously. Probably wonder why I sped myself up.
Once I cleared the trees and out of view I immediately shrugged off my sweatshirt a spread my wings just in time. The wind below me literally exploded as I stopped just a foot above the ground as my wings leveled me out and kept me suspended in the air. The wind from the impact blew whatever fallen leaves below me outward in an expanding circle from the initial force.
As quickly as I took the article of clothing off, I dropped silently to my feet and pulled my sweatshirt back over my head. After a few seconds I heard someone laughing loudly as they broke through the tree canopy a couple yards away.
He held a white longsword in his hands and cleaved it into the trunk of a large tree. With a slight grunt of effort he held on and let the sharp place carve its way downward and slow his decent. Dante rolled to the ground and sheathed his blade effortlessly.
"Your arms okay? That looked like it should of hurt." I asked walking over to him.
Dante rolled his shoulders a little bit and flexed his arms, "Nope. All good."
His blue eyes roamed over to me, obviously a little curious about my own landing but I set off in the direction of the mountain.
"So you have two weapon functions?" I asked, this walk was going to be boring so might as well talk about something.
"Actually three." He stated nonchalantly, walking alongside me.
Three? I wonder what that third function is. He already has two close range weapons so it has to be some sort of gun? "I take it you want to keep that a secret."
"Well, I mean it's not really that big of a deal. But it would be a little shocking if you did see it." He explained as we stepped over a couple overgrown roots.
"Not a lot shocks me anymore. But no need to reveal your weapon to a potential opponent if you don't need to." I stated, but it might eventually be revealed if we come across some heavy resistance.
He just shrugged his shoulders again as we continued on. It was still early in the morning so maybe if we got lucky we wouldn't come across too many grimm along the way.
…
If only that were possible.
I heard a low growl echo out from behind a line of bushes. It immediately shattered the somewhat quiet atmosphere of the forest and silenced all surrounding noises with its presence.
"It's an Ursa." He stated quietly, his eyes scanning the surrounding bushes for movement.
"Bound to be more." I added.
Despite the lack of intelligence in grimm they can always somehow attract the attention of all the other grimm in the immediate area.
"Think we can sneak by them?" I asked half-heartedly.
"Where's the fun in that?" Dante asked, pulling out his longsword. Now that I look at it, it looks a lot like a medieval knight's sword, but with modernized simplistic design and a white overhaul. The very base of the blade seemed to be black a couple inches before the hilt.
"Fine with me." I smirked as I detached my own swords from my back, their blades seemingly invisible in the dark forest.
Admittedly, I'm a little surprised that Dante doesn't care about the lack of light. Considering at this time all you'll be able to see would be their red eyes and armor, unless you were a faunus. After all me having this night vision was awesome, but I was impressed that he was quick to decide on attacking.
Another low growl emanated from the opposite bush behind us, followed by the rest of the bushes echoing the call as well.
"You take left I take right?" He offered with a shrug.
I just cast my gaze along the surrounding bushes, numerous piercing red eyes came into view behind the foliage to our left.
"Easy enough."
Just as I said that three ursi shot out of the bushes letting out more ferocious growls as they slammed their way through the leaves and on their way to us.
Here we go.
I leapt over the first ursa as is dove toward me with a nasty snarl and kicked off its head, my curved blade carved its way across the back of his neck easily as I flipped over him, causing it to drop dead.
The other two growled and sent consecutive slashes toward me on my way back to the ground. They aimed both low and high, hoping to catch me off guard but I adjusted myself and slid between their claws as they passed me.
Of course, I didn't pass up the opportunity to slice them off on my way through.
They howled in pain as I landed on my feet between the two. Spinning on my heal, I carved through their sides twice and caused them to back off slightly.
I turned to the one on my left and brought my blade up through its jaw from below, piercing through its head and killing it instantly. I reared my other blade back and swiftly released the blade in an arc straight across the other's chest.
With a howl of frustration it bit through its pain and charged with a limp, careful not to use its amputated limb as it ran. I stole a glance over toward Dante and he seemed to be dispatching his own ursi as well, slicing through them with practiced ease.
I caught my second blade out of the air and spun around, using the force of the catch to fuel my next throw. Going full circle, I released both blades one after the other and watched as they cleaved through my remaining enemy and circled around to cleave through one of Dante's ursa as well before returning back to me.
"Hey!" The white haired teen whined as his ursa dropped dead in front of him.
"Sorry, got bored." I replied humorously.
The forest fell silent again as we looked around. No more ursi, or anything else in the area.
"Huh, that was quick."
He stated what was on both our minds as I swiped my blade through the air, whipping the blood into the grass and left the rest to burn away from the corrosive dust.
"Nice work by the way for fighting in the dark." I commented as I placed Annivia's Talons onto my back.
"Not bad yourself." Dante replied as he sheathed his own blade.
We continued on our way with a couple more encounters, but nothing too major. It was just a couple more ursi and a few beowolves.
The remaining beowolf dropped dead in front of me as we trekked past the halfway point to the mountain.
"I guess it's just the ursi and beowolves who are the morning goers out here." Dante commented sarcastically.
Though I guess we've been lucky enough not to stumble upon any overgrown deathstalkers or king taijitu.
…
The silence around us was immediately destroyed by an ear shattering screech from nearby. Undoubtedly within 50 feet of our current position and the thundering sound of falling trees was unmistakably the sign of it burrowing its way toward us.
"I guess these guys are also morning goers?" I asked rhetorically.
"Unfortunately, it appears so." He responded. "At least there's only one."
…
A second screech sent the surrounding leaves shaking and rattling as another thunderous crashing sounded from another direction.
"Of course. It would've been unfair if it were only one to split between the two of us." I said in morbid humor, earning a chuckle in return.
"Yeah, I would've stolen the final hit from you. Now there's one for each of us." He replied.
Oh this should be fun.
All thoughts ended as trees in front of us and behind us were shattered into splinters and falling timber.
Now I'd like to add a little thing that I forgot to mention before and for that I'm sorry. But a good friend kindly reminded me about it so here we go. Demonic1556 guessed that the cloaked teen was Dante, so congrats to you for figuring it out so quickly. On a side note the name of the mountain, 'Kenna', does mean 'Fire'. Which is ironic for being a snow covered mountain but there's a reason behind it. I hope you'll enjoy that, anyway Favorite…Follow…REVIEW…have a good one guys!
Cya :D