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Fighting Yang.

Fighting Yang. Fighting Yang. Fighting Yang,

I wasn't sure I was up for it. Whenever we fought back at Beacon it had been as one-sided as any of the others had been. She thrashed me because she was a monster of flame and fists. This time, though, she slammed her fists together and visibly winced. She looked down. Her gaze flickered across her knuckles, rotating her hands.

"Don't tell me you're out of practice." It took a lot of work to build up the kind of callouses that let you do the kind of boxing things she did. Not just on the hands but on the shins as well. She was known to kick with her box.

"I'm more than in good enough condition to take you on, Vomit Boy."

I wasn't what I once was. Sure, I still had the motion sickness that gave me that nickname but I was a killer now. If Yang wasn't on top of her game I could beat her. I knew myself. I was nice like that. I took matches off of Ruby now and she was a terror to behold.

You couldn't just train against people this good and not start to rival them. You couldn't fight the monsters I had fought and not gain a little edge.

Ruby wasn't just letting me win, either. Or if she was it was really really convincing. I'd taken her by surprise and beat her back with my raw strength. I was no match for her speed without my semblance but I'd shocked her with it.

I drew my sword in its broadest form. The shield wrapped perfectly around the smaller blade like my girlfriend had designed, and I waved the six-foot single edged blade around and down at my girlfriend's older sister.

Girlfriend. It was a funny word in my head, even. It wasn't something I thought about much but Ruby and I had grown close after Yang had abandoned the mission. I had been by Ruby's side. Not Yang.

"Try me. I will surprise you."

"So much confidence. But for how long?" She danced away from me with a similar angelic grace as her younger sister always possessed. Something a little extra beyond human. It must have come into being through a decade or more of having her aura unlocked.

I had tracked down her sister's enemies and I had faced Salem's monsters. I hadn't paused for recovery when my partner was taken. Actually taken. Yang had.

She'd flinched.

"You can do it Jaune!" Nora shouted.

"Yang," Ruby drew out the 'a' sound. "Don't take Jaune lightly." There must have been something sobering in Ruby's voice because Yang's eyes narrowed at me.

I heard it too. I wondered if the others heard the undertone of worry and urgency in Ruby's voice. To them it may have just sounded like another cheer. Yang and I heard differently from them if that was the case.

"Three." Nora started.

"Two." Ruby joined in.

"One." Ren nodded along with the words but stayed silent.

"Go!"

Our friends counted down from their comfortable positions by the sidelines.

I activated my semblance with barely a moment of concentration. The blue wisps wrapped around me and I saw the flare give Yang pause. I did not share her hesitation and I leaned forward. I glid inches above the ground in her direction one arm down, the other easily holding up the entire weight of the broadsword behind me.

I approached her with a reverse backflip that I turned into a sideflip and swung the sword vertically from behind me to in front of me. She blocked it by crossing her arms and our weapons clanked with a flash of sparks.

The force of my attack caused her to slide back across the ground. Her eyes went wide up at me and I chased her with two more horizontal strikes.

She tried to use the opportunity to check me, see if I over extended, but I just backed off. I stepped back, taking actual footsteps that kicked up dust, and warded her off with the long, long blade of Crocea Mors.

If I kept her spaced away from me and never let her close the gap then I'd never get hit. That was the first rule of warfare, don't get hit. She shot at me with her gauntlets, cracking in the morning air and the blow hit me in the chest and knocked me to the ground. I kicked myself back up but she had already stepped inside my range.

She punched me in the stomach, then the head. She wasn't respecting Limit, though, she was the one who over extended. I moved in a blue blur and Cross-Slashed her, no set up.

She'd fallen right in my range and I blew her off her feet. She rolled off the ground where she landed. Her hair flared up as I activated her semblance with the final hit of my Cross-Slash.

She was on fire as she stepped towards me with that same fluid grace. I went on the offensive, spacing her away with my sword. She deflected and tried to step in on me but I rotated back swinging the sword around my body once more. Her gauntlets clashed with my sword again and again but I never let her inside my range and I kept her four or more feet away from me at all times.

"Let. Me. Hit. You." She punctuated each word with a blast and a punch but I met each strong.

"Absolutely not." I swept the sword upwards when she collided with it one last time and drove her back. Her hair started to fizzle out. I needed to be patient. I needed to win slowly and surely. I couldn't defeat her all at once, I simply was not strong enough. But I could do something like death by a thousand cuts all while keeping her from ripping chunks of my aura out with those beefy gauntlets.

I hadn't had any chances to deal much damage but I also hadn't had much done to me. A good trade off but I only managed brief charges of Limit, as such I was a long ways off from getting even my second one.

Her hair finished fizzling back to normal and I could afford to be a tad more aggressive. I leapt forward bringing my sword down on top of her in a massive forward airborn attack.

It connected with her center of mass and rung her like a bell. I jumped juggling her through the air. Pressing the golden and silver sword upwards and caught her before she could touch the ground.

That was it for my combo and she brushed her hair from her eyes and resumed trying to get in on me. She nearly succeeded with a feint to one side but I resigned my position and backed off. Any engagement I didn't feel like I could win I would retreat like that. I bidded my time and waited for the openings she would give me.

I set up an opportunity. I'd been barraging her with the broadsword, now I stepped in close to her guard, took one hand off the sword's hilt and grabbed her.

She was shocked, by all accounts it was the worst move I could make, but I picked her up by the arm and slammed her into the ground.

She rolled with it and for my risk I didn't get much reward so I went back to the waiting game.

She had to give me openings because she had to try and get in. And she was trying to get in, desperately. We both knew that if she breached my space she could put in the work but getting into my zone was difficult.

She found her opportunity when I got impatient and over extended with a horizontal slash. She pushed off the blade and vaulted over it one leg at a time.

Then she started to hit me and she backed her attacks up with shotgun blasts. Jab. Cross. Hook. Cross. Body shot. Head hook. Body hook. Cross. Overhand. I reeled backwards and tried to get my sword between us but she was unrelenting. She stepped with me and pivoted around me at the same time, staying in an awkward position for me to deal with. Head hook. Body shot. Cross. I stepped with the oncoming haymaker and managed to clear some space between us.

She smirked at me. She knew that it had to hurt and it did. But I'd been eviscerated in my time since I'd last fought her back at Beacon and compared to that, these weren't too much. She'd ripped into my aura but it wasn't anything I hadn't felt before. I brushed the shotgun pellets off of me with my movement and we went back to playing my game.

I jabbed at her with the long edge of Crocea Mors and she tried to make another move to brush it aside. I rotated with her and delivered three solid chops to her body, faster than she could react to.

Like that, I had Limit again. Now the ball was in her court. I hit her hard, dashing with my attacks and using the long reach to knock her off balance. My horizontal slashes brutalized her and it was all she could do to block. I was too fast and strong and I hardly touched the ground as I fought.

She pranced away from me. For once she was the one that needed space and as she did I swept the blade vertically along the ground and let loose a blade beam. She was caught up in the attack and by the time it released her from the swirling blue mass, I was on top of her and I delivered a single upwards strike that ended way over my head.

She cartwheeled close to the edge and I gave her a moment of reprieve. If I'd been trying to kill her, this is about when I would have done it. I'd have forced her to retreat and battle me next to that ledge and I'd have tried to force her over it if I could.

Was it sick of me to be thinking about how I'd kill my friends? What the fresh fuck is wrong with me.

I tried to calm down and remind myself who this was and what I was doing. I wasn't here to kill Yang. I wasn't. It was just a fight.

I didn't press her. I held back and watched her breath hard. I didn't even charge my semblance for those moments. I just watched in mute horror at my own thought processes.

I was fucked up. I was on the fucked up side of things and I wasn't going to get better. I knew it with the same surety that I knew my own name. This shit was permanent.

I tried to shake it off and charge my semblance but my focus was off. Yang came at me again, she didn't have her own semblance activated this time, whatever threshold it took to activate I must have been shy of it when I went on my offense.

She got inside my guard and lit up my torso and head in a barrage of shotgun backed punches. She floored me, and I just lay there, beaten up by a girl, again, and thinking about my life.

"You had me running there, Jaune." She blew a kiss at me and waltzed back to the sidelines. "You did surprise me, for what it's worth."

"Well thank you." I said to the air just above me. I still refused to get up and reclaim my weapon. "Really means a lot."

"Are you alright, Jaune?" Ruby called out. I held a thumbs-up up above me.

I slowly rose to my feet and gathered my weapon. I was disappointed with myself. For a number of reasons this time, not just because I lost a battle I knew I could win.

I had hoped that the combat would get my mind off of things. Instead I was more acutely aware of my crimes than ever. Here I was surrounded by my close friends and all I could think about was death and murder.

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"I can't believe how fast you've gotten, Jaune." Weiss told me. "You-well…"

"You callin' me slow is that it? Watch it Weiss." She laughed at my faux offense. She tried to hide it behind her hand but didn't quite manage it.

"You just used to not be fast is all I'm saying. Now you're fast enough to keep up with Ruby, I bet."

"No. Nobody I know is that fast. She takes me apart."

"Hey I'm plenty fast with my glyphs, I'll have you know."

"You should see the kind of bullshit she can do with her semblance now. She just bursts apart into petals and then drifts behind me."

We sat and watched Ruby spar with Nora. Nora had the reach necessary to keep up with Ruby and she was plenty strong but it was coming down to speed and Ruby had it in spades.

Yang plopped down beside me, tapping my arm with a glass of water.

"Thanks," I said graciously accepting it. "Cheers."

"You've done good Vomit Boy. I was worried about Ruby. I'm glad she had you watching her back."

"She was watching mine too. She really slapped me together, like you wouldn't believe."

"We're you a bit of a mess?" Yang poked me.

"I was all over the place. Depressed as all hell. She showed me the light about it."

"You still want revenge, though, for what happened to Pyrrha." Yang took a drink of her own water. She wasn't the sort to beat around bushes I would rather she had a bit of modesty about.

Weiss was at least easy to understand since she had broached the subject with trepidation.

"I do. And I'm going to get it too."

"Atta boy." Yang patted me on the back. "Fuck those bastards."

"Well…" we both looked towards Weiss as she trailed off. "What? Don't you think it could be dangerous? Plus Ruby wouldn't want you to do it. Plus Pyrrha wouldn't want you to do it either."

"Tough shit." I murmured. "I want to. Maybe my revenge and the justice for her life is about more than 'what she would have wanted.'"

"Then you admit you're doing it for yourself."

"At least in part." I confessed. "At least. But considering what was robbed from me, aren't I allowed that. Pyrrha could have been right here."

Yang winced at something in my tone. "Maybe Weiss is right."

"I thought you were on my side."

"I am on your side. Just not if it kills you. If you're slow and careful about it, then I'd be in your camp." She sighed.

"Hasn't killed me yet. And besides, who knows when we'll encounter Cinder, if ever."

"You don't believe that." Weiss accused.

"No, I don't. But I do want to be ready, whatever that means."

"You already know what I think." Ren muttered lowly. "The best revenge is letting go and living well."

"I am living pretty well. Letting go was never an option, though. Would you be able to let go?" I asked him. I already knew the answer. He couldn't let go of his father and mother. He wouldn't be able to let go of Nora.

He didn't respond and he didn't look at me.

I felt like a jackass but I was right.

"Does Ruby know you feel this way?" Weiss asked.

"Everyone knows I feel this way now. Everyone important that is."

"Well… so long as Ruby knows…"

"You can't be serious Weiss," Yang disagreed. "He's going to get himself killed."

"I'm trying to be pragmatic."

"I'm also right here." I protested lightly. "In the room, so to speak."

I watched as Ruby was pushed back by Nora. She let out a grunt of exertion that could only be described as adorable before throwing herself back at her opponent. She twirled about her scythe and tried to impale Nora with Crescent Rose but she was blocked by the shaft of Nora's hammer.

"Jaune if Pyrrha couldn't beat Cinder you can't either. You'll die." Yang informed me helpfully. It was a good reminder I suppose. "What do you think will happen to Ruby, then. To all of us?"

I probably would die.

Sobering.

Ruby… I thought about what she told me at the top of the carnival. I'd be breaking her poor little Ruby heart. It made me hesitate. It made me flinch, even. If I fought Cinder I would probably die and where would that leave my little rose?

Was I willing to fight to my death, then. Knowing what I would leave behind here in the world of the living if I should actually fall.

All the late night kisses and all the times she held me close, I'd be giving all that up and for what? A chance at a prayer at revenge Pyrrha wouldn't even want me to have.

"I can't let it go. I just can't. Not yet at least." I sighed. "What am I supposed to do? Just give up on getting justice for Pyrrha's soul?"

"That's a rough one bud." Yang mumbled. I didn't look at her. She certainly didn't have the answers I wanted. I became a murderer over these things, I couldn't just give up now, could I? "Remember how you grabbed me in our fight. You didn't rush into it. You conditioned me and surprised me. You set it up slowly and carefully. That's how you should go about this revenge business."

I thought about it. I didn't even get that much payoff for that grab either.

It was a selfish and ugly thing I was considering. I'd killed, at least in part for Ruby but just as much so I'd killed for Pyrrha. To have the shot at my vengeance. Now that I sat down, breathed in, and looked at things in terms of the people I would hurt not if I failed, but when I failed, it wasn't much of a contest.

I had to give up.

I felt like I was finally waking up for the first time in months. I had things here that I didn't want to lose. Not even for the revenge I wanted so desperately. I've been a selfish prick. Ruby's been worried about me this whole time. I'd been making her worry. Weiss had been right last night.

I needed to put this behind me. Not for my own sake, I didn't deserve it, but for Ruby's and Ren's and Nora's.

Fuck.

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