Left foot. Right foot. Thrust, duck, Glyph—
Ruby's in trouble. Damn. Ruby—
The roar of the crowd. The guy with the gun is launched firmly back by the punch of her Arma Gigas. Weiss's summoned knight towers above the gawking opposing team, and the look of amazement on Ruby's face makes Weiss positively glow.
Her muscles burn with exertion. Her back is swamped in sweat. She's dizzy. She feels ready to drop to the ground at any second. "My BFF!" Ruby calls.
"...No." Weiss gets out.
"Yes!" Ruby cheers.
The next round of blows Weiss exchanges with her opponent, a dark-haired boy with a staff, sends her rapier shattering, the fragments of the blade narrowly missing her as they fly past. Gods, she misses Myrtenaster so much. If only it hadn't been blown up in the warehouse… The standard-issue rapier she borrowed from the Beacon Armory has apparently turned out to be an actual piece of junk.
"Oof!" comes Professor's Oobleck's voice over the loudspeaker. "I guess Miss Schnee's weapon just wasn't… cutting it!"
"Good one!" Yang stops to chuckle, and gets beaned in the head by a hoverboard for her arrogance.
Weiss sighs and tosses her broken sword aside, directing her knight to go help Yang. Weiss's opponent advances on her with a victorious expression, and Weiss takes a few steps backwards as if wary. The second her opponent gets within range, though, it's definitely Azula's (bad) influence on her as Weiss abruptly reverses direction and lunges forward, making her way under the dark-haired boy's guard and snapping a clean right hook into his jaw. Out of nowhere, like an avenging angel, Ruby picks up on the momentum of Weiss's hit and swoops in with her scythe. She slams the boy diagonally across the chest with the flat edge of Crescent Rose at an astonishing speed.
There's the sound of the buzzer as the boy's Aura drops below the fifteen percent threshold. Weiss chances a glance at the screen and winces. Despite not having taken any hits herself so far in this match, just the simple act of punching her opponent, making physical contact, has shaved a noticeable portion of her Aura off. Keeping her Arma Gigas in play is draining it at an even faster rate.
By some miracle, Weiss makes it through the remainder of the match. She directs her Arma Gigas to corral the remaining opponents into one part of the arena just in time to meet the finisher of Blake and Yang's combined attack. Yang's shotgun Gambol Shroud momentum boosted fist sends three people flying at once with a terrific 'crack', and Weiss almost feels bad for the opposing team as they hit a far wall.
The alarm buzzes. Oobleck and Port's voices declare RWBY the victor of the match and the arena erupts into cheers. I did it? she thinks, with some disbelief, as it hits her. We did it!
...Not bad, Azula's begrudging compliment.
She looks at the screen. Her Aura is just a sliver away from knockout levels, but hey, who cares, she made it all the way to the end , all on her own, without Azula helping her. It's the only thing she could have asked for. At once the adrenalin starts to flee from her body, and her knees do the about-to-buckle thing, but Yang wraps an arm around her shoulders, steadying her.
"We're the best!" Yang hollers. She pumps her hand into the air. "Hell yeah!"
"Good job," Blake's praise sounds very genuine.
"I'm proud of us," Ruby smiles.
The sounds of the cheering crowd makes Weiss feel light from head to toe. She really does love her team, these people who are always willing to stand by her side. Like a real knight knowing when his job is finished, Arma Gigas takes a kneel and dissipates into shards of blue light. Weiss looks up at the sky above her, feeling elated and yet absolutely exhausted.
It's been a hard week, up until now, much harder than she thought it would be. She's been careful with her eating, getting enough sleep, not pushing herself too hard during practice. For the most part, Azula has been very respectful with keeping herself subdued in the background which was something that pleasantly surprised Weiss at first. Then Azula explained, very pragmatically, It's because I know you'll be too tired afterwards for a good while, leaving me in control, so I can be patient, and Weiss could only sigh.
She could probably die happy now. Well, maybe not. But this is really, it really is... If every day in her life was like this, with her team, then that would really be happiness.
At the fairgrounds, she's not feeling very hungry. She's almost staggering, eyelids drooping, trying her very best not to let her teammates who are buoyed by their recent victory onto how exhausted she is. She hates to admit that Azula was right, because Azula was definitely, well, right.
You have the meeting with your sister later, Azula reminds her with a clipped tone. Best not to sleep through it. Not waiting for her response, Azula takes control.
Immediately afterwards, Weiss (or maybe Weiss's body more accurately) feels starving.
"I feel like I could eat an ostrich horse," Azula mutters and puts a hand over her stomach.
"What even is an ostrich horse?" Yang laughs. "Anyways, I know a place."
The noodle stand is a little bit out of the way on the fairgrounds, which makes it good for making the atmosphere feel private while also not being too isolated. Focusing on the feeling of hunger to try to keep herself awake, Weiss directs Azula to take out her company credit card and treat her teammates.
The what, Azula says.
The plastic card in my wallet, Weiss says, patiently. It has money on it. The wallet is the flat leather case.
When the card declines and the shopkeeper throws it back at her, Weiss can positively feel Azula's snark. Well obviously it didn't have money on it.
Thankfully Team JNPR shows up and Pyrrha saves the day before Blake can commit a petty crime. Azula eats an entire bowl of noodles while Weiss tries to figure out why her card is declined. Has she done something to warrant this kind of reaction from her father?
...Actually, if she puts even the slightest bit of thought into it, there are probably all too many reasons right now why Jacques Schnee would be upset with her… She hasn't exactly been keeping in contact with him. And if he's gotten wind of how her grades have slipped this semester as well as how she's injured herself, he would be furious, to say the least.
A Schnee is supposed to be cold, perfect, composed, at all times. Despite how hard Weiss tries, she is not really those things anymore, if she ever was.
"I could go for another," Azula says, pushing the empty bowl away from her.
"I'm impressed!" Nora says.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Jaune says. He looks a little green around the gills. Ren pats his shoulder consolingly.
"I'm glad you seem to be in much better spirits than before, Weiss," Pyrrha says. "I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by the way you fought in your team match. When did your Semblance evolve?"
The shopkeep sets another bowl in front of her. Before she digs in, Azula shrugs and says, "You know me. I'm always excellent." The matter of her Semblance's sudden unlocking of summoning is something Weiss has been keeping mostly under wraps, even Ruby and Blake and Yang don't know the specifics of what went down in the warehouse with the bull Faunus and Cinder Fall. Weiss doesn't want her team to worry about her again, and anyway, she made it all out of the warehouse in one piece, which was the important part, so what is there to tell, right...
Oh wait, Weiss says, dumbly. A problem has just occurred to her. If my card is declined, then that means I don't have enough money to get airship tickets to Atlas for the winter solstice. That five thousand Lien she gave away as a tip a week ago (for some reason it seemed like a good idea at the time) is coming back to bite her hard.
Can't you just get there on foot? Azula brings up. Either way, I feel like you have simply too many ways around this nonconsequential problem.
I do, but it's just… Weiss sighs. The noise is external, a real sigh that comes out of her mouth, maybe because of the sheer amount of dejection she's currently experiencing. I really wanted to avoid having to go home if I could…
Through her mind flashes images of the manor and her family. First, her father, then her mother, before finally lingering on her brother. Whitley and her have not been on good terms for a significant amount of time now.
Just set the big house on fire when you get there and you won't have to stay in it, Azula suggests. Problem solved.
Azula is promptly and succinctly responding to everything Weiss is saying, while also simultaneously fielding conversations with the rest of RWBY and JNPR in real time. If it weren't for the fact that Azula is advocating for arson, Weiss would honestly find it admirable and kind of unnerving how she can multitask so effectively. How does her mind keep up with two completely different trains of thoughts at the same time? Not to mention, it's obvious that Azula has something else on her mind that she's keeping her occupied, too.
It's hard to pin down precisely. Her and Azula think 'at' each other in order to communicate, but they also have a second layer of inner thoughts that is much harder to discern, not without serious concentration on the part of the other person. Right now, though, Weiss can sense that Azula is thinking about something related to Cinder Fall.
"I like the color of your new contacts…" Jaune tries for a compliment, but it comes out a little weak, and he quickly doubles over, putting a fist to his mouth. Ren gives another consoling pat.
"Go to your fight already, you blonde buffoon," Azula waves him off. "I'm not interested."
The matter of her family, she decides not to worry about it now. She moves onto whatever is bothering Azula. Is Cinder Fall really still going to make a move, Weiss guesses. That's what you're thinking about.
Tch, of course she's still going to make a move, Azula says with a little derision. Consider all the resources she still has at her disposal, and consider that she's spiteful. No thanks to your Headmaster's uselessness, we ended up not accomplishing much that night. Not to mention, the topic of what is to be done with the Fall Maiden remains. The question you should really be asking is when she'll make a move.
Not during the tournament anymore, surely…
Who can really say.
JNPR leaves before they can be late for their fight. Azula works through the second bowl of noodles. "Wei—er, Azula?" Ruby says, tapping her on the shoulder when she's finished. "You want to go catch Team JNPR's match with us?"
Azula glances at Ruby, stands up, and says, coolly, "I have a meeting with Specialist Schnee. We'll rendezvous at a later juncture."
"A later juncture…?" Ruby repeats, then nods uncertainly. "Sure, sure, yup, a juncture. We can do that."
Weiss might have admonished Azula for being stand-offish, but no longer hungry, she's already starting to doze off.
There's a lot of humanoid metal machine things floating around the fairgrounds. It's probably part of the Atlesian reinforcements sent in by the General with the stick up his ass. As she walks, Azula glances up at the number of warships hanging around in the sky. They've increased considerably since a week ago, with a few explicitly flanking the floating top-shaped arena in the sky.
Somehow, the sight fails to inspire any confidence in her.
She loves a good show of force as much as the next person, but it's obvious that's all it is, a show of force. Overwhelming military might is great for overrunning opposing cities and towns and nations. What it's not good for is dealing with subterfuge and enemies that slink in the shadows, enemies who can actually think and plan and use their brains to sneak in plain sight right past all your soldiers and warships to attack you from the inside. Take the Avatar and his smarmy gang of brats plus Zuko, for example. They were able to screw over her father, the Fire Lord, and the entire Fire Nation invasion fleet almost entirely by themselves. Take herself, for example. With just the help of Ty Lee and Mai, she was able to bring down the crown jewel of the Earth Kingdom, something not even her uncle was able to accomplish after a prolonged siege with a whole army.
...Good thing Weiss is asleep, otherwise she might get on Azula's case again. You know, Ba Sing Se's when you 'peaked', I bet it's why you keep bringing it up, said Weiss once, smugly, much to Azula's eternal irritation. Maybe it's progress that Azula is more annoyed by the memory than enraged. After all, thinking of Ba Sing Se also inevitably brings to mind memories of those two-faced traitors, and now shouldn't that be absolutely enraging...
Not for the first time, she wonders just what the hell she is doing here, in this world, in Weiss Schnee's body.
She just feels… aimless.
Weiss always complains that she doesn't care about anything but getting her firebending back. But if not her firebending, then what else is she supposed to care about? Three, almost four years and counting, she's just getting tired of it all. At this point she's repeated the word 'revenge' to herself so many times it's starting to sound trite. She hates Zuko. She hates her mother. They wronged her. Her father is the only one she can believe in, who ever believed in her. Well, he's all nice and locked up in his cell rotting away somewhere, without his firebending, too. Once she would've done anything to be like her father. He was the closest thing she had to familial love. Now she's starting to realize that he was a colossal failure, too. Maybe it just runs in the blood and he passed it down to her.
What else is Azula supposed to care about but her firebending? Becoming Fire Lord? Deposing Zuko? And then what? Fight a whole other war again as the nation undoubtedly tears itself to pieces…? She knows she can do it. She knows that it is, in some ways, her duty, her pride, to do it. But at the same time, she already knows it's going to be incredibly bothersome to accomplish.
She's Azula, but who even is Azula anymore… An ex-princess, disgraced, that everyone that she ever knew probably thinks is dead?
Without her firebending—excluding for a second just how utterly right and satisfying firebending feels on an intrinsic sensory level to her—she really would be a nobody.
She's…
There's a pulse of sudden thought and feeling from Weiss that makes Azula falter midstep, before she presses forward. Weiss is still asleep, it was something akin to a thread of a dream that she had felt. And on that topic, Weiss Schnee. What a damn headache, on top of everything else…
No matter what Azula does, she knows she's technically walking down the road of assured victory for herself. Either she gets this person's body for herself entirely, or either she gets her own body back. And yet, something about the situation rings so entirely hollow to her.
I've gotten soft? Is that it? Azula thinks of Cinder Fall's glowering, orange eyes, burning through her, as she had refused an offer which once upon a time she wouldn't have been able to resist— I'll just stab her in the back when she isn't looking, I'll reverse our roles, just when she thinks she has everything, I'll take it from her, I'm not a servant, I'm a leader, I'll be the one who takes the helm of this 'new world order'— and the ambitious hungry thoughts that had just melted away from her mind like water. She thinks of the strange chill that had run down her back at the realizations, she reminds me of myself and I could have been this person and oh does everyone see me as someone like her?
Gah. Add to her feeling of aimlessness this irritatingly vague feeling of frustration.
Winter Schnee, Weiss's stupid specialist of an older sister that Weiss is so enamored with for really no good reason, is waiting for her in an out of the way courtyard. Azula sits down opposite the table which contains a pot of tea on and pours herself a cup. She's feeling the noodles now, maybe she shouldn't have eaten so much, but she had ordered the spiciest ones the stand had available and discovered they really had tasted like authentic Fire Nation fire noodles, which she hasn't had so long.
Winter frowns at her, hugely, when she sees Azula's eyes. "I want to speak with my sister."
"Tough luck, she's already asleep," Azula sneers. Weiss was more exhausted than either of them had realized. "I'll just relay all your delightful messages to her later."
"How do I know you're not trapping her against her will right now?"
Azula rolls her eyes towards the heavens. "For Agni's damn sake," she says. "Why would I even show up here if I was holding her hostage?"
Winter just stares at her, tension sinking deep into her shoulders, and Azula groans. She knows there's no point in doing this.
Hey. Wake up.
Wake up, Weiss.
Weiss is dreaming about something related to her family. Azula lets out a tsk of annoyance. She can see bits of images flying through her mind, the empty manor, the paintings, too much white and blue color, she can smell the sharp stench of alcohol—and something's blurring together, the palace in the capital city, dinners at the table with her and Ozai alone—
Screw that. Azula scowls and does the mental equivalent of a cattle prod and she feels Weiss's body jolt, almost involuntarily, as Weiss wakes up.
"...What the hell...?" Weiss says, her voice a low, confused slur. Then she sees her sister and her eyes widen. "Oh… Winter." A long, significant pause. Azula can almost physically feel how Weiss is struggling to gather herself, how her thoughts are all scattered about, the absolute fatigue. "Um. I… Um. I'm just a little tired. We could…" she trails off.
Tell her I'm not oppressing or imprisoning you, Azula prompts.
"The other me, uh, Azula can handle it," Azula feels Weiss put on probably the most unconvincing smile in the world. "I trust her loads. Um. See you later." Then, Weiss fades out, going somewhere in the recesses, even farther back than where she had been before, as if not being able to stay in control a second longer even if she wanted to.
At Winter Schnee's even more tensed up look, Azula just groans again. "If you were watching the fight, you know her Aura was drained significantly," Azula says. "She's just recovering. Your sister is one hundred percent fine." I'm really not slowly sucking her soul away as sustenance for my own or anything like that. "Anyway. I'm guessing we need to talk about things now."
"I was going to ask when Weiss learned to summon and commend her for it," Winter says, coolly, "as well as ask her for a demonstration."
"Well, alright, see, that's not happening right now," Azula says. She takes a sip of the tea, then sets it down, putting her palms facedown on the table. "Oh, here's something we can talk about. Do you want to lend us some money?"
Winter says, very flatly, "Pardon?"
"Some money," Azula repeats. "Currency. Lien. We need to purchase fare for a trip to Atlas sometime within the following months. I believe Weiss has already briefed you on the situation with the borealis and the winter solstice, so you can understand why we need to go there."
"But why would you need to borrow money from me?" The way Winter says this slowly, as if Azula is some kind of delinquent who has made Weiss blow all of her allowance on unsavory things.
"You're a convenient source of funds?" Azula shrugs. "If you don't want to, that's fine, whatever, the tri-colored trio would probably be willing to bark something up." Weiss's team doesn't seem to be that poor or anything all things considered. "Or I'll talk to the Beacon Headmaster and persuade him." As much as she would find it distasteful.
"Father's cut you off," Winter's mouth thins.
"...There's that, too."
"No matter what you do, how discreetly you try to act, the moment you enter Atlas airspace, Jacques Schnee will be informed. Excluding the SDC's considerable influence, there's also the fact that Weiss is still a minor."
"Can't we just enter through non-official avenues then?"
"You understand that I'm a military officer, yes?" Winter says, coldly, seriously. "And that what you're suggesting is strictly illegal?" I knew you were a bad influence on my sister, Azula can practically read in Winter's eyebrows, and one of her own eyebrows twitches.
Before she can retort, Winter just continues with, "You can let Weiss know that as much as she wants to, she can't avoid our family forever. As long as she remains the heiress of the SDC, she has to talk to them eventually, especially Father." There is something so incredibly bitter about the way Winter says this, and Azula is suddenly even more furious.
"Like you weren't the one who just abandoned everything and cut off all contact," she snaps. "Fine, I'll tell her, but don't sound so miserable like you're the one who's been so wronged. Nothing boils my blood more than hypocrites."
"As long as Weiss remains the heiress," Winter grinds out, "this is, unfortunately, the truth of the situation. I am simply laying the facts out."
The conversation is over. Azula stands up and walks off somewhere—not storms off, she's not throwing a tantrum, she's very calm and composed, she is simply removing herself from a place she no longer has any need to be. The Scroll in her pocket, Weiss's new Scroll, buzzes. Azula checks it. There's a message from Ruby.
The message says, hey r u ok? :( u seemed out of it earlier, y was azu the 1 in control?
A beat, and then, btw jnpr won!
Azula squints. It takes an impossibly long time for her to decipher what is being relayed and she needs to borrow heavily from fragments of Weiss's memories in order to understand the message. What absolutely atrocious grammar and composition. The girl needs help. Then, Azula is alarmed to detect a trace of fondness—not from Weiss, from herself—and stamps it down.
As she's trying to figure out how to compose a message back, the screen of the Scroll lights up with a call, the display reading 'FATHER'. Ugh.
How is she supposed to reject it…? This button, right…?
"Weiss," immediately comes Jacques Schnee's slick, oily voice over the speaker. "How nice of you to finally pick up. Did you forget your manners while you've been away at Beacon?"
Damn it all!
A moment of significant silence. Then, that slick, oily voice again. "...Weiss?"
If she doesn't say something, she already knows Weiss will be incredibly upset and never let her live this down. Cursing herself and the fates and everything that's brought her to this situation, Azula says, very smoothly, very professionally, "Hello, Father. Much to my dismay, now is not a favorable time to speak. I will be in communications with you shortly afterwards. By the way, I will be visiting the Kingdom of Atlas in two months' time for some personal business unrelated to the family. Because I am sure you are an incredibly busy and important man with many affairs to settle, I suggest that we do not interact with each other while I am there. In order to facilitate such an optimal scenario, I would appreciate it if you could un-decline the 'credit card' and allow me funds so that I can make the necessary arrangements. Cordially, your daughter."
Azula doesn't know to drop the call from her end, so she just puts the Scroll on the ground, hidden below a little bit of shrubbery, and walks away. When she comes back, about ten minutes later, the call has thankfully ended, although she sees that she has apparently missed two more calls.
Then, Azula writes back to Ruby, telling her she'll come find her.
Weiss better appreciate her for all of this.