AN:
Chapter Title: Semblance with no name
Arc 1: Bubbles of Futility Chapters
"C'mon Castus, race you to the top of the church's bell tower." We had just checked in with a family doctor after my brother got in a fight with some asshole kid that my brother managed to win though not without getting him in the face by a thrown rock nor the punch to the cheek he took.
He gave me a raised brow.
"You have wings Azrael, it's hardly a fair race." he stepped out of the way of a woman that passed us by on the street who eyed my wings and likely my eyes. We were in a large courtyard-like area out the front of said church, it was normally filled with people but today there weren't that many.
"Fine I won't use them unless I fall or you do, how about that?" Our family doctor had a small clinic in sight of the church so I brought him to her for the quick patch up and despite my wanting to pay for it she refused it and just told us to keep out of trouble.
Castus eyed a set of crates and a metal lantern holding brace sticking out from the side of one of the buildings which had caught my attention as well. "Alright, what does the winner get then?" he said, wincing at the dulled pain from the scar forming on his lips and the bruise from the punch on his cheek.
"How about..." I looked around trying to think of something, it was probably four in the afternoon when the sun was beginning its descent. "Whoever wins doesn't have to pay for a family dinner?"
"That hardly sounds fair but..." his stomach grumbled. "You're on Az I'm starving." he got into a position and I set up a countdown from ten on the black watch I wore on my left wrist.
We waited for it to hit five before I counted along to it with him.
"3, 2, 1!" We both yelled in unison before setting off for that same stack of crates we'd eyed up earlier, running at full speed. I only just kept ahead of my brother who overtook me the moment we had to parkour up the crates up into an unfinished loft of someone's house, it was a mess of wooden foundations that we used to throw ourselves across a gap between it and the next building roof.
Having overtaken me by a large margin I watched as Castus leapt across another large space between a house's roof to the tiled roof of the church and flung himself up the top of its main building with me only a few metres behind, I had forgotten how nimble he was. I was so used to abusing my wings to get everywhere, so I never really got used to limbering my body up for these little jaunts I loved to do with my brother- and at one point my sister as well.
Coming to a stop on the top of the roof I found Castus smugly smirking at me before he turned to the bell tower, I huffed a laugh as I stood next to him.
"The final leg of the race eh?" I said jovially while taking a moment to catch my breath a little, I was kind of out of shape since I had stopped working for the post office recently so I could get ready for Beacon. I needed to work on that at some point.
"Weren't you the one that wanted this race so randomly? Why aren't you trying harder?" he elbowed my side.
I blew a sigh before rushing off to the short lived surprise of Cas, he shouted after me before I launched myself up the side of the tower getting my hands and feet in some decent footholds before climbing up. I moved fairly fluidly up the side of it though once again my younger brother shot past me, his foot slipped and I watched as he went wide eyed and fell from a few metres above me- I threw myself up propelling myself with my wings and catching his hand as I kneeled on the roof at the top and helped him up at which point we both fell back on our asses on the the slightly angled tiled roof that was above the bell. The tower itself was around five to six stories high whereas the church building was about three stories tall, definitely not a fun fall.
"So did I win? I think I did, seeing as you cheated." he laughed despite nearly falling to the ground and breaking his bones.
"I did say I'd use them to save us should something happen- but yeah sure you win I'll pay for dinner tonight." I shook my head with a light smile rolling my eyes at Cas the moron.
A few minutes of silence went by before I said something as I stood up lifting Castus to his feet so we could look out on the village. "It's a pretty good life we have here don't you think?"
"Yeah… here's hoping it never changes."
"And that it never changes us little brother." I put an arm around his shoulders and he did so to me as well, it was nice.
[Dreams of not so distant memories]
I felt someone nudge at me moving the skin on my right shoulder as they poked me, I was tired and didn't want to get out of bed. Yawning out a poor attempt at swatting them away came from me "Just a few more minutes 'Cilla I'm-" another yawn "too 'ired for 'tis" I could feel myself slipping back into the grasps of sleep once more.
Having just dreamed of a time with my brother before I came to Beacon, it was nice and warm, much like how I was feeling right now… so close to sleep…
"Azrael…?" whoever they were persisted with their assault now moving onto poking my face. "Please get up."
My eyes snapped wide open now allowing me to bore deep into silver, they were definitely not 'Cilla's eyes, they were-
"Ruby? What are you doing in my room?" focusing on our surroundings I realized I had made a mistake, for one my mask was gone, secondly this wasn't our dorm, nor my room at home and definitely not Serqet's apartment.
"Uhm… if you're awake now can you come with me? Yang wanted me to bring you to her if I found you 'cause the rest of your team couldn't find you for some reason." The small girl looked awkward and uncomfortable.
Wincing from a stiffness that wracked my body I realized I had fallen asleep in one of the soundproof studying rooms in the library, there was a pillow under where my head and arms had been a moment ago. Maybe I came here to study? I couldn't say I really knew.
"Alright let's go-" I yawned and wiped water from the corner of my eye.
"W-what about your Mask?" the red hooded girl pointed to the black wolf mask, it was one of the spares I must've decided to wear today. It took me a few minutes to realize what had even happened, right before we walked out of the room and lifted the blinds on the large window walls that looked back into the room. I put a hand on her shoulder spinning the girl around.
"Wait, you saw my eyes right?" she nodded idly while we slowly made our way through the library.
"Yeah, they're pretty, it made me wonder why you hide them." She looked at me curiously with her own oddly coloured eyes.
"Hmm… maybe it's because there's some deep dark mysterious power behind them that allows me to kill people by looking at them funny like some comic or cartoon villain." I said only partially joking with a slight laugh to accompany it. "What about you Ruby? Your silver eyes must do something cool right? After all I just told you about my cool villain power right?"
She pouted. "I'm being serious here! Stop treating me like a kid and give me a real answer!"
'Oh but Ruby that is the truth… with eyes like these one can only become the villain.' but I kept that thought to myself, no one needed to know about my muddied thoughts of grandeur and illusionary pretence of heroism.
"Hey Ruby?" I was curious about something now.
"What's Up?" the girl responded, dropping the pout and becoming more serious for a moment.
"Why do you want to be a Huntress exactly? It never really occurred to me why someone like you would become one, you're like a super crazy good eye for weapons and stuff, you could probably become the world's greatest weapon smith or something y'know?" That or piss-off Professor Howitzer more.
"Ah.. well it always just sort of seemed like the right thing to do, my Mum was one and my Dad still kinda is, plus my Uncle Qrow he's a super badass one!" following that she mumbled something I didn't quite catch.
"What was that?" I pursued this because it was something I really wanted to hear because she was so young yet the only person I'd ever seen that actually made me think they were a prodigy.
"I-I want to become a Hero!" She nearly yelled at me as her face scrunched up and she clenched her fists like she was waiting for me to critique it.
"Sounds like you, I suppose I should've expected this when I asked you." her eyes almost scowled at me as they narrowed.
"What's that supposed to mean!" she was annoyed like I had just doused her flame in some capacity.
"Nothing nefarious or hurtful Ruby, it's more a poke at me than you so don't think too hard about it." I put my hands up in front of me like I was surrendering or something like that before continuing. "Just remember that all dreams, good or bad, lucid or shallow, Nightmarish or Heavenly- no one feels good when they wake up in the middle of one."
"I don't get what you're trying to say Az-Azreal?"
"Azrael, and well I'm just saying never stop dreaming that dream I guess, if you've got something then keep it going until it seems about right for you to let it go." I paused for a moment letting it sink in. "Bah I don't even know what I'm saying- I'll see you around Rubes." with that I left her walking into my team's dorm.
Upon entering the room shutting the door behind me I found quite the peculiar sight, Yang was laughing clutching her sides while Blake was up on the counter top of the kitchenette hissing at what appeared to be a corgi. Past this my partner didn't seem to know what to do with herself about the situation watching on in slight horror and confusion at the whole ordeal, I for one felt somewhat pissed off at Blake because she was currently not helping Faunus stereotypes.
A sigh escaped me alerting the team to my presence.
"Blake what the fuck are you doing?" was the simple and straightforward question I asked.
"Azrael you gotta help me! This- this Demon! Won't leave me alone and Yang won't help!" I looked at our team leader who stopped laughing long enough to wipe away at the built up water around her eyes before giving a shrug, though she seemed about to make a joke that would likely come at the cost of being vaguely racist towards Blake so I said something cutting her off.
"Is this what you got Ruby to come and find me for? A Dog?" said Mutt's ears perked up upon hearing itself in reference and turned toward me trotting over before sniffing me.
Something somewhere deep within my heart and being that persisted like nothing else that urged me to keep from the dog, I wasn't sure what it was but my eyes twitched behind my mask.
Maybe that was what Blake was reacting to and not just the fact that she was a feline Faunus and there was a dog in front of her.
Shaking my head I lifted the mask from my face letting my eyes adjust to the lines as they formed properly in my vision and began their wavering in the air around us. Sometimes I forgot how distracting they were to have, sometimes I wished they weren't there, sometimes I wish my Semblance allowed me to turn it off so I could get some peace and quiet.
Damn it.
I felt a headache coming on and decidedly ignored the situation presented to me going straight into the bedroom, going over to my things I pulled out the blank-featureless mask putting before leaving the dorm and heading off to go see Anastasia, I felt like I needed to talk with her to help reign in some of my mind while it was beginning to race and become muddled.
There wasn't any thought in my mind as I left to even say where I was going, though that's not saying much considering I basically put my body on autopilot for it to take me where I needed to go.
[Head full, too many thoughts]
"We don't discuss your Semblance often do we?" Anastasia asked as we had been sitting in silence for the past ten minutes since I arrived and she provided some type of tea.
I hadn't taken notice of what kind beyond just that it was tea.
"Don't we?" I was sure we talked about it during the last session I had with her.
"We don't, but we did also talk about it recently didn't we?" I don't think she ever mentioned her Semblance before, but I was pretty sure it was some kind of pacifying effect because whenever I was in her presence there was an almost unnatural calm that would take hold of me.
"Yeah..." I said as my mind wandered.
"You never did give your Semblance a name did you?" she asked as those teal eyes watched on as I changed from the lounged position I was in to laying on the couch.
"I don't have one for it, no."
"Basically you can perceive death right? So why not call them 'Eyes of death perception'? Or 'Mystic eyes of death perception' because of how they look all mystical and all that." her suggestions lingered in my mind and I said them out loud a few times.
"Why not just 'Death Perception'?" I asked, looking at her as she brushed some of that long silky white hair out of her face.
She laughed to herself for a moment with a growing smile. "So your Semblance is DP is it?"
I looked at her confused, not understanding what she was laughing about.
"Tsk you're no fun you don't even get what that's an abbreviation for do you?"
A silence hung in the air for a few minutes for a while we sipped away at our drinks. Eventually, fifteen odd minutes passed by and my mind was far less muddled and I could think straight without being overwhelmed by the lines of death.
"What is your Semblance Ana?" I asked as I sat up on the couch and stretched.
"Oh? Mine huh..." her voice trailed off as she cupped her cheek and thought. "Well I don't really know." she said, sounding like she somehow didn't know.
"You've gotta be lying right? I mean you went through Beacon and work with people who're always using and finding out about them."
The older woman across from me stared at me very seriously for an awkward amount of time.
"Of course I know what my Semblance is, but I definitely had you fooled for a moment" She said, breaking the serious expression she had been holding. "I've been calling my Semblance 'Hearth' make of that what you will." As she spoke I ran a hand through my hair noticing how much it had grown recently.
It had been quite short when I came here but now it was reaching my shoulders in only the three odd months I'd been here.
"Hearth?" I asked not quite sure what to make of it, I guess it explained the calming atmosphere that followed her.
"Yup." she paused. "I'm not telling you how it works though."
"Okay." shrugging I didn't continue to inquire about her Semblance.
Since I was feeling better I talked with Anastasia for another half hour before deciding to go back to my daily activities meaning that it was the end of the day and I still had one class left so I was headed towards… oh I had Howitzer… actually I think I'll just head back to the dorm. I got a lot of staring from other students as I passed through the halls with my blank mask on and it was to be expected considering my usual ones had a little more flare if you will.
My thoughts brought themselves back around to my hair as I slowly walked along, not so much about its length this time but about its colour. Have I ever told you what my hair colour is? I feel like I have, but anyway it's dark like my mothers on top but quickly becomes a graphite-like colour. My mother and sister tell me and Castus all the time that it's the hair colour from our father, though in general mum and Priscilla tell Cas and I we're a lot like dad so there was that.
Our father though…
I only really knew his name and things 'Cilla and Mum told us.
[Clearing his mind]
A few days have passed since Anastasia and I decided upon Death Perception as an official title for my Semblance, basically what I'm saying is that it's friday now and that I have more counseling today and more importantly we had sparring classes with Miss Goodwitch. That was something I was looking forward to as normally I opted out of fighting in them because people got pissed off at how I would just fly above them and dive bomb them.
But since I had managed to finish that axe shotgun I was looking to see how it performed in an actual fight, well that and I wanted to do some fighting that wasn't just against Manus during the afternoons he took us to that arena we kept going to.
We were on our way to Miss Goodwitch's class right now seeing as lunch just ended, my partner and leader were walking ahead of Blake and I right now. I never did ask her to continue from where we left off about what my mother talked with her about, but I wasn't all that bothered about getting answers surrounding that just yet.
Along with our team, team SLVR was up with Yang and Pyrrha, RKWD was next to Blake and me, while NAVA or rather Nereius and Hektor's team were behind us with several more teams from our year traveling to Goodwitch's class.
I was in conversation with Shamhat at the moment, as much of a conversation as you could have with a girl like her. It was a mostly one sided conversation where she was just telling me about some old tales from her family and occasionally Diarmuid would chime in since his family and hers were apparently long time friends.
Sometimes I was amazed at how connected my friend group was to one another, and by sometimes I mean all the time.
As we walked into the class and went up into the seating the blonde teacher went and stood in the center of the arena with her Scoll in its large tablet form as she waited for the class to be full so she could take attendance.
Once she finished calling attendance she did something on her Scoll leading to the massive screen above the area to come to life with everyone in the classes names on it in an order like a scoring board. Pyrrha's name was in the top 20 with her at 1, along with her was Nereius, Raiden, some other people I didn't recognize the names of as well as Weiss, Ruby, Hektor with Blake and Yang sitting in the 19 and 20 spots.
I knew why I wasn't that high in the ranking, but it was still a little annoying that I wasn't up there.
Because like I said, I didn't participate in that many spars so I had inadvertently opted out of being anywhere notable on this scoreboard we were meant to be watching all the time when here to push our growth. Not that I was all that competitive so it wasn't something that would push me that same way it might the rest of the people in my class.
When fights started getting called the first pair to step up to the play were Shamhat and Cardin from team space cadets. I wasn't sure why Miss Goodwitch decided to choose them for the first round but it was an interesting match up.
Walking down the stair isles between the seats calm as ever wearing a garland of white lilies and crimson roses on her head and an ivory white shin length cloak like dress with straw sandals. With her long light green hair swaying as she went by, reminding me that I don't think I'd ever seen her dressed in her school uniform. On the other end of the room Cardin left his team getting some encouragement from two of the people on their team, though Arc didn't, sitting there in silence watching as the bully descended the stairs and headed to the locker room.
After two or three minutes both emerged with their weapons and Cardin wearing his armour while Shamhat hadn't changed what she was wearing in the slightest except that she had a staff. Her staff was probably almost as tall as I was with a circular chime at the top of which had a hollow sphere with a large hexagonal dark purplish Dust crystal. Around that weird hollow sphere were rings that all rotated on their own in different directions.
I didn't recognise what type of dust crystal she had in her Dust caster but it looked like it would be interesting when she used it. The ginger brute scoffed at the green haired faerie of a girl as she looked at him with a natural smile that I had never seen waver.
As Goodwitch counted down for the match to begin only Cardin readied himself to leap onto Shamhat who was waiting passively, as soon as she said go-
"Huh?! WHOA!" The bruiser yelled after Shamhat tapped the but of her staff on the ground twice and as Cardin leapt at her he was entrapped in a translucent purple mist that caused him to float and spin wildly.
The Amphitheatre erupted into laughter watching on as he was played around with hovering above the arena, I noticed that the speed he was spinning at was about the same speed as all the rings on Shamhat's staff. Though as I noticed that I watched her flick one of the rings, this caused him to go even faster and faster reaching a point where he was nothing but a blur-
"Ms Kostrama please set Mr Winchester down, he's had enough and it's very clear who the winner of the fight is." Glynda said stepping in, she hid it well but I caught her smirking at the way Cardin had been handled.
With the tap of her staff on the arena floor the brute was unceremoniously dropped on his head rolling off the side of the raised platform and began throwing up immediately once he managed to figure out where he was again.
Officially Shamhat was declared the winner with her name appearing on the large screen as such, the moment Cardin was cleared and my friend was sent off the stage the next match was called with Hektor's name and photo appearing then soon after mine.
I audibly groaned looking over to my friend in the seating row above ours who had a big smile on his face.
"Whoo! Go Azrael!" my blonde team leader cheered as I stood up shaking my head and used my wings to glide me down to the locker room door past Goodwitch.
Going straight to my locker I changed into my dark steel colour cuirass, vambracers and greaves, though I decided to forgo wearing a shirt with it and only wearing some tight fit greyish shorts that stopped above my knee. After putting all that on I grabbed the Calico with hexagonal magazine and all, I loaded a couple ice Dust rounds in before putting it in a holster on my right thigh. I left Macellazione on its own since this wasn't going to be a fight I was willing to risk it in.
Before I went to walk out I looked over in time to catch the end of Hektor doing stretches.
"Fuck" I whispered to myself as I looked to the ceiling.
I stopped again before deciding to remove my mask and leave it in the locker and finally headed toward the exit that went back out into the amphitheatre, as I did my friends robotic prosthetic slapped my back making me stumble forward a bit through the doorway out into the cheering students watching as we took to the stage.
At which point I'm sure many people noticed the lack of my mask, most particularly was our teacher who had a sudden and brief flash of worry cross her face probably thinking I might try something stupid like kill my own friend.
No it wasn't the reason I was going to fight without it, I needed to be able to keep track of him and that meant I couldn't allow my mask to be a distraction from Hektors precise attacks and near perfect form, as he much like his brother were probably two of the best fighters in the school hands down without a doubt. It was scary enough that Hektor had taken a full strength punch from Manus that even Yang could barely take and my friend was knocked unconscious instantly with four broken ribs two of which nearly punctured his lungs only to upon hearing as much when in the infirmary two days later his only comment about it be 'It was pretty hard' when describing how it felt to get hit.
And then there was Nereius who Pyrrha was comparable to, and I meant that as I said it, that wasn't a mistake on my part. She was comparable to him and not the other way around, his speed and strength was out of this world, I had only seen Ruby barely keep up with him in a race. From what I had learned his Semblance was capable of making him go even faster than that.
Shit I was actually worried for my safety if anyone was in need of being worried about here.
"Are the two of you ready, Solatium?" I nodded standing in a strong hand to hand stance I had learned years ago from my sister. "Astēr?" she asked after me, stepping away from the center of the arena platform once he had agreed.
"Begin!" the older woman shouted, on the mark as if he knew before she did he set out instantly with his fist raised to meet mine not drawing his sword at all.
His punches were fast and each one broke my defense, easily sailing through and hitting my stomach and sending sharp pains through my body despite the armour and my Aura. As he finished his flurry of six punches at blinding speeds I managed to deflect his right arm as he over reached for a seventh allowing me to step into his guard and elbow him across the left side of his face with my right arm, staggering him enough that I could work in enough movement for a decent sidekick planting my foot square in his chest-
I watched as he was sent back several feet and put a hand to his jaw moving it from side to side with an audible click as a small line of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
"Hmm I didn't expect you to have any decent form." my friend commented before rolling his shoulders and circling me.
When he finally rushed forward he unsheathed his golden bladed sword in the action leaping out in a strike that I narrowly avoided by spreading my wings to their full span flapping them in a massive gust forcing me back a good fifteen feet at which point I drew the Calico from my hip aimed it and sprayed a burst of ten bullets at Hektor putting him on the run as one of the ice Dust rounds connected with his left leg causing him to stumble.
The reprieve the ice covering his leg brought me was short as he smashed it away with his prosthetic, following that he spun the sword in his hand, I watched on as the sword turned into a long swordspear.
"Fuc-" was all I managed to get out before ducking out of the way of his weapon.
As I ducked I punched forward with my wings like I had done to that WF member during that Dust store robbery and managed to grapple Hektor for all of five seconds before he somehow drop kicked me sending me rolling to the floor. I tried to tune out the sound of cheering from all the people watching but it was becoming increasingly more difficult.
Not getting any more time to think I was kept on the run by my friend as he pushed me around the arena for what felt like hours and never allowed me a chance to look at the screen that displayed our Aura's.
While I was recovering from another of his flurry of attacks that had come from his fists again as he easily and smoothly transitioned between all forms of combat at his disposal I found his prosthetic fist uppercutting me into the air.
My vision faded right as he struck true and strong as ever.
AN: