AN:

Chapter Title: reaching heights
Arc 1: Regular People Chapters

We are in the third week of school now.

At least four times a week we would train and get Tutored by Manus who always started and ended those sessions with a spar that was all of us versus him in which he stated 'I'm the closest thing the school has to a live Grimm so I don't mind playing the part to help build your teamwork'

We had learned a lot about him since meeting of course, one of the things he told us about was his family and their history because I had asked about them and if he was an oddity but he said that he was pretty average sized for his family. I also got an actual number to place on how tall he was, the way he put it implied he could be taller- Manus said 'The last time I was measured I came out at 258cm' I had choked on the water I had been drinking at the time.

If that was average in his family then what was considered abnormal?!

Hell I mean I'm about 203cm tall which was 6'6ft like I had mentioned a while ago and my sister was something to the tune of 220cm- both of us were considered giants by everyone in Valor because no one was as tall as us. If I remembered correctly Mum said something about our dad being as tall as my sister which was just… y'know? Like surely we'd have ended with our mothers genes in that department right?

Who knows, well at least Castus wasn't a giant; he was fifteen years old right now and around 5'8ft or so. I think I already compared his height to someone so I'll leave that where it was for now to get back onto the mammoth of a man.

I found out about the exact height of my sister because I had messaged her about it asking so I could compare it to Manus, she hadn't believed me about his height so she wanted to see him in person at the end of the semester.

So the Jómsborg, his family, were a people that had ties in the annals of Remnants history that went back something like a thousand years, a Faunus family through and through that took on the most useful parts of their traits so every generation continued to get stronger and more powerful to a point where like I might have mentioned another time as well but he and all his current living relatives had much denser muscles and bones that made for carrying around these massive lumbering giant forms.

And their skin had taken on a sort of greyish tinge and itself had become strong too, they were like perfect specimens of what the Faunus biology could create after centuries of evolving.

Anyway Jómsborg are from a tribe in the mountainous taiga's and deep pine forests of Solitas, because of their environment they became how I described a moment ago and eventually started their own small villages around certain parts of the continent where they resided until what Manus called the "Expansion Raids" happened.

He didn't or rather hadn't said much more on those except that his ancestors were very brutal and crude, thought highly of themselves and hated particular Human religions they came across with a passion for some things that ended up happening during this period.

It was really interesting to learn about his family and their history, sure there were definitely bits he wasn't telling me about them, but I also didn't really want to look them up and find out about them through the internet unless they painted his family in a light that made them look worse than the Grimm. Which is why I didn't press any further about things he wasn't comfortable with sharing.

Though he did talk about the "Jómsborg Highland Academy" a prep school and full on academy for any wishing to combat the Grimm and become Huntsmen, not only that apparently it taught people about their gods and story.

He said he might see about taking our team their when the year ends during our break to spend some time with his family and in the case of our leader, Manus thought it would be good for Yang since the girl wanted to fight strong people and there would be his much stronger cousins and such there that she could fight.

While there's a lot more I could say about what he had told us I'll move onto the other things that happened over this last two weeks, firstly after that weekend I had spent with Serqet all of our weekends ended up like that unless my team had said ahead of time they wanted me for some team training or what have you.

I had more of those counseling sessions with Anastasia who Serqet confirmed to me as being the other person from my sisters Beacon team at the school still, Ana herself hadn't brought it up yet despite very clearly outlining this 'friend' of hers she talked about in our first session as being my sister.

Despite her though I had remembered my first meeting with my sisters team all those years ago, when I was about thirteen and a few of the other times I had met them when she had brought them to our house on their holidays.

I didn't really know why I had forgotten them, but the last person of their team I had forgotten was a woman named "Scáthach" I had a distinct memory of her where she had spared with my younger self and had declared after hanging out with me and Castus that we were her new siblings since Priscilla had become one as well in their time together.

Scáthach was an interesting woman and of what I remembered about her was the bright red hair she had and most specifically the spear she carried, something about it kept itself in my mind.

I think I covered everything that you've missed…

[Catch Up]

There was a package sitting on the countertop of the island of the kitchenette when Pyrrha and I walked into the dorm, it was a decent sized box and as we walked over to look at who sent it we found that it was addressed to me. Seeing as there was pretty much no one that I could think of that would have any reason to send me things I was a little weary about it and took the Khukri from its sheath under my shirt on my back and stood as arm length away as I could from it quickly slashing the tape over it and opening the cardboard folds with the tip of the knife.

Peeking into it-

"Masks?" the redhead said ignoring my trepidation and opening the box up fully.

"What kind?" I questioned as I put the knife back and stepped forward to look into it, Pyrrha handed me one and took one out herself leaving another in the bottom.

"This one kind of looks like a cats face" she said a small smile crossing her lips as she put it on looking at me, it looked like a cat version of the one I was wearing-

"Woah!" I reached out and caught the girl as she dropped like a rock, slipping the mask off her face she looked up at me with a terrified look.

Something about how scared she had looked made my chest tighten and my fist clench followed by the sudden urge to protect and defend Pyrrha… I wasn't sure where the sudden desire had come from but I didn't ever want to be in that position again, even if it was only a second of it, I hated the way it felt.

"Are you alright?" I asked, helping her back to her feet, placing the mask she had put on face down on the counter.

"I.. uhm.. Yes." She regained her composure fairly quickly. "What was that?" she asked no one in particular as she rummaged through the box finding a note.

"'Azrael I wasn't sure if you'd accept these, but I was worried you might lose your fox mask so here's some more for safety's sake.' Signed Gaea… who's Gaea?" the redhead looked at me for an explanation.

"Oh that's my mother." Well she was right, I wouldn't have accepted these if she asked… but then again she always did things like this if she thought it was for the best.

Pyrrha dropping like it was hot made more sense now, her Aura might have briefly shut down when she put the mask on since Mum made it to accommodate for my Semblance and Aura… which meant she used another piece of herself to reinforce these with her own Semblance.

That woman.

Sighing I looked at the other two- the one I had been holding was a black wolf mask with golden accents around the eyes and colouring in the ears with these black and gold pieces that went down on both sides of its cheeks past the chin somewhat. The ears on it reminded me of my mother and sisters in a way, they were quite tall, another thing to note was that despite having a wolf like nose on it stopped there abouts and I imagined that if I wore it you'd be able to see the lower part of my face.

It was a reminder of home though, it was like some of the masks around the temple to a canine headed god that had a couple statues and an altar.

Lastly was a blank white featureless mask that didn't even have a nose or mouth on it or any addons, the only defining thing it had was that it was the fit for my face and had eyes. Flipping it over I found a little piece of paper that said 'make your own'.

Blinking, I stood there taking them all in. I chuckled a bit to myself, something about them made me laugh.

"Are you sure you're okay Pyrrha I know for sure that can't have been pleasant for you and you're probably feeling pretty awful at the moment." She gave me a shaky smile like she was trying to push past it, I might have spoken too soon when I said she gained her composure back.

"I'm fine just-" she took a deep breath.

I stared at her. "C'mon let's go see the Nurse and see if they have something to make you feel better." she accepted with a nod, right as I was about to follow her out I quickly put the masks back in the box and put it on the ground out of the way before heading out the room having put my fox one mask back on.

While we walked through the hallways of the school a few people that appeared to know Pyrrha stopped to speak with her and she wanted to oblige them, but I thought it would be better if we just got her straight to the medical wing already so I apologized for her and said we were in a rush.

It took us five or ten minutes to reach the medical wing, not that I was really counting just a guesstimate, when we arrived there was a blonde woman about as tall as what I remembered Weiss to be in the middle of giving a second year some pills. When she noticed us she had told the student to leave.

"What might you need of me?" she asked looking at me then Pyrrha.

Getting straight to the point I said. "Have you read my file because Pyrrha put on my mask earlier and collapsed because of it."

The woman took a hold of the redhead's hand sitting her down in a chair and rushed off to get something in another room before coming back right as the green eyed amazon started to wane in the seat.

"Here you are Ms Nikos, these are Aura boosters, they'll help with its recovery." She handed these small capsules to Pyrrha to take with a glass of water, she also handed Pyrrha a sandwich for whatever reason. "You need to eat as well. It will help your body digest and disperse the boosters."

Oh that's why.

"As for you." the Nurse turned to me. "Do you know if there is likely to be any more issues than what happened with her Aura shutting off like it did?"

"No there shouldn't be any more problems or anything to worry about, I just got careless and forgot to tell her not to put on the mask- my mother had sent some spares along and we were looking at them when she tired one on and this happened." I explained earning a nod from the woman, she didn't seem too pleased with my lack of care but otherwise was glad I had brought Pyrrha here to get check.

Not ten minutes later did the doors into the lobby-like area of the medical wing burst open with our Blonde team leader coming through it looking around to find myself half asleep in a chair next to Pyrrha who had actually fallen asleep. I had been abruptly woken by what Yang had done while my partner was still out cold somehow.

While the Nurse had said when she dismissed us that we were to stay here for the time being so they could monitor Pyrrha just in case, she said that because of the shock of the situation my partner would end up passing out so her body could hasten the process at which her Aura recovered.

Me though, I was just tired from a long day of classes and training.

"Pyr! Az!" Yang said loudly, but not quite yelling.

Looking at her with half-lidded eyes I yawned and made a motion for her to sod off before yawning again and leaning back in the seat trying to sleep some. It was only afterward that I realized she couldn't see my face and expression because of the mask and all, so to her she had just showed up worried for her teammates only to get told to piss off by one of them- so rightfully she punched me in the gut and I hadn't seen it coming seeing as my eyes were closed.

"Guh! Ow! Shit… why?" I looked into the blondes eyes as they had turned red, her glare made it very clear she was only asking questions not answering them.

"We were checking out some spare masks my Mum sent me and I forgot to tell Pyrrha not to try them on and she ended up collapsing so I brought her here." I explained quickly satisfying her for now as she went over to the desk where the nurse was now and talked some before coming back.

"You need to carry her back to the dorm." Yang said.

"Why?"

"Because this is your fault so it's your punishment for negligence and hurting your partner." damn I hated it when she was acting responsible, standing up I leant down and picked my partner up bridal style seeing as it was easiest and when I turned back-

Snap

Yang was standing there in front of me smiling as she took another picture with her Scroll. I would have moved to do something if Pyrrha weren't in my arms so instead I just grumbled to myself and let her have this victory and headed back to the dorm.

[In a bad way]

A few hours after the incident our whole team was back in the dorm after having dinner together as had become custom for us in the last two weeks when Yang made the suggestion that someone cook for us. I wanted to try my hand at it anyway so I had offered and ended up making some Vacuan dishes that my mother brought my siblings and I up on.

Tonight had been Pyrrha's night to try seeing as we had only done it three times before, the first being mine like I said then Yang and then me again because Blake hadn't arrived back until after the supposed time we were to have dinner together.

Since Pyrrha was still a little out of it and recovering Blake made something to make up for missing her night, I don't know why but I expected her to make some sort of seafood dish, but she surprised everyone when she cooked a Mistralian dish she called 'Mapo Tofu' it was a bowl of rice with black beans, very spicy ground pork and whatever Tofu was.

Having never heard of this tofu stuff before I needed to be assured it didn't taste like dirt or something foul and for those of an acquired taste. When I tried it, it was actually really good, if a bit hot for my liking.

Anyhow, we were all sitting around on the couches, Yang was watching some show on the t.v. while Blake was reading a book on the other side of her. I had rifled through the bookshelf Blake had managed to fill with all her books already and read a couple of them, but there wasn't too much left I wanted to look at.

The raven haired girl had a specific kind of taste in novels that I certainly didn't have and while this was fine, what wasn't fine was the fact that I accidentally found her smut last week when I was looking for a new book to read, she didn't know that I knew about her… fetishes but I did and I was somewhat disturbed, but couldn't exactly blame aher for liking what she liked even if I wasn't in to it myself.

At the moment I was in a back and forth with Castus who was on his lunch break at the moment, seeing as there was a time zone difference this was one of the few times I could talk with my younger brother and I think it was helping him because he was fifteen and had gone off to Shade academy because they had an earlier age that you could apply at.

He was staying with our grandparents while going there, from what he told me had a lot of similar classes to what I had now except that he had one dedicated to making his own personal weapon exactly the way he wanted, kinda made me wish I had gone to a prep school so that was an option.

I liked the handgun I brought as well as the khukri and Macellaio, but something that was maybe more than just what they were. After seeing weapons like Yang's, Pyrrha's or in the case of Ruby being dragged into an hour long discussion where she wouldn't let me leave until she had explained all the best parts about her scythe.

My younger brother had sent me an image of what he had begun designing and I was impressed.

It was a fairly insane idea, but I wanted to see the final product of it. He had designed a fully automatic 20 to 60 round drum magazine fed 20mm rifle that doubled as a huge mace. My brother certainly knew how to dream big.

Also I'd like to point out that from what I could find online right after he had sent it to me was that 20mm rifles were normally referred to as Anti-tank rifles, which was most importantly why I wanted to see the final product of this.

\\-I have to go now lunch is over-/

With that I put my scroll down and found myself interested to look at my new masks again.

The box had sat next to the island a part of the kitchenette since I left it there before taking Pyrrha to the Nurse, opening it up I looked at them again as I walked into the bedroom with the box before setting it down next to my bed as I sat on my bed.

Picking up the black wolf one that was reminiscent of the masks at the temple back home I looked into its eye holes.

Thoughts of home came to mind, once again I opened the windows and stepped out into the night closing them behind me as I flew onto the roof again with the mask in hand as I touched down.

A while ago I mentioned the field of reeds in passing, my feelings about the matter are the same as then, but this mask makes me think of it again and wonder…

Wonder if I could atone for some of the things I've done because well, putting it lightly I've done some real awful shit and I'm not sure if I should owe it up to my Semblance and nature or if it's just a part of my person to be drawn towards it. All my life whenever I asked people who were knowledgeable on the matter they'd say that a Semblance was an outward reflection of your core- so what did that say about me? Was my soul a tainted mess closer to death than any other? Was I a vessel for something greater?

Maybe I was gifted these eyes to help cleanse the world of some rot? There was always something different about every person's lines of death after all, like I could see whether they were tainted or not if that makes any sense.

The sessions with Anastasia were helpful for this sort of thing I suppose, but really she just like to sit there and make conversation and ask questions every now and again. It was nice enough though sometimes I wanted to say something about how I felt towards these eyes of mine- but for whatever reason something always stopped me before I did.

Was I worried that she'd think less of me?

Who knows.

I was sitting on the tiles of the roof star gazing as my thoughts continued in this direction of thought, after half an hour of staring wistfully into the sky I wondered if I'd ever find the answer to my questions.

You know there's a level of irony in my name and my Semblance as they are, from what I learned recently while talking to Ana, there was an angel in a religion that had the same name as me, apparently he had similar coloured wings too.

He was the Archangel of Death, and here I was only able to see it.

My thoughts were interrupted when I heard footsteps behind me and I turned to see my redheaded partner walking toward me. It would probably do for me to quickly mention that the area I came up to wherever I flew onto the roof was a terrace area with seating and planters as well as fencing around the edge, with a door that went back into the building.

"You come up here a lot." the green eyed girl said sitting down next to me on the bench.

This reminded me of when I first met her on the Airbus that first day of Beacon, it wasn't nearly as windy and it was her approaching me this time, but still.

"Yeah I like watching the stars." She giggled to herself about my answer.

"If you looked in the mirror you'd see that your eyes are full of them." Pyrrha pointed to them before her own eyes cast themselves down to my hand where I was still holding the mask.

"I am really sorry about not mentioning it beforehand by the way." I felt really bad about what happened and really wished I could make it up to her.

"Don't worry about it, I should've been more careful about it after all those safety talks that we get in Mrs. Garand's class." She looked away from me out at the rest of the school grounds.

"Mm… hey Pyrrha I know we haven't really known each other that long-" I stopped myself realizing how this sounded. "This isn't some sort of confession I'd like to point out, uhm I just wanted to ask you about..." I yawned, giving myself a moment to put my thoughts together.

A minute of silence passed as she sat in wait. "What are your thoughts on destiny or fate?" Maybe finally looking to her after three weeks of somewhat ignoring her would get me some insight that I hadn't been able to see.

"In a sense I do." she paused looking down at the ground before back up at the stars "When I think of destiny, I don't think of a predetermined fate you can't escape, but rather some sort of final goal. Something you've worked for your entire life." the redhead had said it with such conviction and purpose that I didn't really know how to respond.

Sometimes I thought that things just had to be planned out that some deity was in charge of guiding us along, but then that wouldn't make much sense I suppose if we were to have our lives weighed by Anpu against the feather of Ma'at on the scales to judge whether our lives were just or not.

Pyrrha's interpretation of fate and destiny were interesting though.

"I see, I suppose mine is kind of similar- though instead of something you strive your whole life for there are moments to define it that were set from the beginning to happen, it's just a matter of how rather than there being a specific version." Which was true for the most part and I'm aware it sounds contradictory to what I said a moment ago about often thinking about how there must be someone who's written everything out.

But generally it felt more like there were those defining moments that were made to help develop you whilst everything else was a matter of chance and such.

Without realizing it I had taken the pendant of my necklace in my hand and was running my fingers over it as I thought, holding it up for a moment before letting it fall back to my chest.

"Why did you want to know Azrael?" the curious green eyed girl asked, tilting her head.

"I'm just a little lost is all, and sometimes the best thing to do is ask for directions even if you aren't sure whether the answers will help you much."

AN: