"Umph!"
A soft but forceful impact hit the side of Akamu's sleeping form.
"Akamu, get up, it's almost time to go back to Beacon!" A high-pitched voice said to him, working like a dog whistle on his ears.
"Bleh." Akamu said, folding his ears back and rubbing his eyes. "It's too late, I'm done for, go on without me." Akamu said in halfhearted voice, reaching a hand up into the sky with a feigned weakness.
"You know, pretty sure Yang's also wanting to hit you with something after you beat her last night, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be as soft as a pillow" Ruby threatened with a lightness in her voice.
Akamu sat up slowly, still rubbing his eyes. "Mmm, she could barely beat me in a game I've never played, what makes her think she could actually beat me?" A surprisingly fast set of footsteps approached, invoking a fight or flight response in Akamu. "Sorry, sorry, don't hit me!"
"That's what I thought." Said a cocky Yang. "Anyways, packed your stuff. I'm gonna carry it all this time, so don't you worry about breaking your spine like last time."
Akamu thought for a moment, feeling a strange sense in his stomach. "Actually, could you leave the guitar here?"
"What?" Both sisters said in unison.
"Just thinking. As much as it helps when I'm... You know... I haven't been feeling like I need it that much lately. Just listening to music calms me down pretty well." Akamu explained, getting up and stretching.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it for ya." Taiyang said, coming downstairs, holding said guitar. "I used to play when I was younger, thought it would get me the ladies."
Akamu heard a breathy laugh from the kitchen, followed by Blake's voice. "Well, I don't think that's worked out for Akamu."
Quick to blush, the wolf faunus jumped to defend himself. "Well, maybe I haven't met anybody I want to seduce!"
"Clearly." Weiss said, passing Taiyang going down the stairs. "I don't think I've ever seen him talk to anybody we didn't introduce him to, sans Cardin." Her face scrunched up slightly saying his name.
"Well, if we don't leave now, it's going to be nighttime by the time you guys get to Beacon." Taiyang said, glancing at the nearby clock.
"Waayyy ahead of you, dad." Yang said, lifting a sizable chunk of luggage. "Gonna need some help with the door."
Akamu sat silently in the cafeteria, opposite to Blake, going over several of his schematics for weapons and taking pictures of them. He could see his progress in crafting marked down with each sheet he went through, which was rather impressive to look at. Of course, he never had his first sketches, those belonged to her, but the current ones he had were proof enough that he was getting better at his craft.
"Whatcha doin'?" Asked a bored Yang, getting up close to Blake.
"Nothing." Blake said, though her actions betrayed her words as she closed the book she was reading from. "Just going over notes from last semester."
Yang tilted her head and caught some sort of small food item in her mouth, before making her remark. "Lame. What about you, Akamu?"
"Going over the weapons and such I've come up with over the past couple of years." He said, mindlessly taking out sketches and snapping them with his scroll. "Kinda made a thing where I can basically do these on my scroll, so I don't really need paper anymore."
"Nice!" Yang said, leaning over for another launched fruit.
A few gracefully silent moments passed, filled only with the giggles of Nora from behind Akamu and the sounds of sheets of paper going across the table. Suddenly, the wolf faunus brought a blueprint in front of him for a weapon he hadn't seen in years. Before he could even comprehend the revolver model that sat in front of him, and all the emotional baggage that came with it, Ruby dropped a giant binder onto the table, partially covering the blueprint.
"Ahem." Ruby started. "Sisters... Friends... Weiss."
"Ru- rrgh..." Weiss said, indignant as always.
"Four score and seven minutes ago, I had a dream!" Ruby said with an authority Akamu had never seen before.
'Wait, isn't a score 20 years? Ohhh, she's making a reference to that one speech...'
"A dream that, one day, the five of us will come together, as a team, and have the most fun anyone has ever had... Ever!" Ruby spoke, her excitement beaming.
'Ya probably want to put that one away if you want to keep it.' The foreign voice in Akamu's head spoke. Shifting to the side, he quickly slipped the paper out from under the binder and began rolling it up.
"Wait, isn't that my binder?" Weiss asked, looking at the hastily crossed out wording.
"I am not a crook." Ruby said, making two peace signs with her hands.
Blake sighed. "Ruby, what are you even talking about?"
The team lead quickly shot a finger gun to Blake. "I am talking about kicking off Akamu's first semester with a bang!"
"I always start my semesters off with a Yang!" The blonde said, a schmarmy smile on her face. "Eh? Ah? Right?"
The perfectly timed apple splatting across her cheek almost made Akamu laugh, but he's learned better than to invoke her anger.
"Look guys, it's been a great couple of weeks, and between more exchange students arriving and the tournament at the end of the year, our second semester is going to be great!" Ruby said, ignoring the entire situation going on with Yang. "Thing is, our classes start back up tomorrow, which is why I've taken the time to schedule a bunch of events for us today."
Akamu looked back up to Ruby after safely storing his blueprint in his backpack. "Wait, you scheduled!? You and Weiss need to stop hanging out..."
"I don't know whether I should be proud or scared of what's in that book..." Weiss said, ignoring Akamu's comment.
Yang, finally done wiping off apple remains off her cheek, picked up another apple from Akamu's snack tray. "Akamu, move." She warned, cocking back her arm back and getting ready to pitch the fruit. The wolf faunus did exactly that, leaning out of the way as a bright green object shot past his cheek.
"Hmmm, I don't know. I might just sit this one out." Blake said, calm as ever.
"Sit out or not, I think we should spend this last day as a team no matter what." Weiss said, looking back at Blake.
Suddenly, Akamu felt a shooting ping in his arm, telling him to extend it just as Weiss started talking again. "I, for one, think that-"
Splat!
Akamu's left hand was now covered in nothing but whipped cream while the surrounding students went silent. Looking behind him, he saw a desperate Nora pointing to Ren, who looked as bored as ever. Taking the rim of the pie tray, which still had plenty of ordinance inside, he gave a death glare to Nora, who gave back a slightly sadistic smile. A few students got the memo as they started walking out, more people now looking at the scene.
"Okay, now it's on!" Shouted Yang, slamming her fists together.
Quickly, Akamu took the pie and shock-putted it back to the sender, Nora just barely dodging the confectionery cannonball. Before she could recover herself on the seat, however, Akamu launched his unopened can of soda at her after giving it a vigorous shake. With a disgustingly bright blue explosion, Nora was sent backwards. However, in retaliation, her counterpart Ren began flinging slices of cheese like throwing stars, the whole of Team RWBY ducking. Surprisingly, one of the slices actually stuck into the wall.
With a practiced agility, Akamu took an opening to leap over to the other side of the table, flipping it on it's side in the process. "The bread still hard as a rock?" The wolf faunus asked, focused.
Blake picked up a loaf and tapped it against the floor. "Yep."
"Wonderful." Akamu deadpanned, taking the loaf from her hands and leaping back over the table while the rest of the team gathered their bearings. The first thing he saw was another barrage of cheese, along with a few soda cans launched by Pyrrha's semblance. Taking a leap off the table lip, he managed to get out of the cheese range, but the soda cans tracked his movement. A quick flourish proved the bread to be stronger than the metal cans, which was simultaneously a blessing and disgusting.
Suddenly, Yang took the opportunity to launch herself over the table, flying under Akamu at an extreme pace. Unfortunately, Nora had the same idea, and was faster to the punch. Literally. Like a cannonball striking Yang from the side, the blonde was suddenly sent flying towards the entrance before catching herself on a table edge. Pushing her momentum into the table, Yang swung it around herself to build speed before launching it back at team JNPR.
With a landing, Akamu also took the opportunity to try and attack Nora, but she was practically impossible to hit without wearing out her energy, which was definitely impossible. Luckily, Akamu didn't have to suffer from the miss as a table flew past, centimeters from hitting him. His breadstick wasn't so lucky, finally snapping in two from the passing wood weapon. Suddenly, more tables came flying by, Yang realizing that, due to her immense strength, she could fling them like discs. The wolf faunus also noticed the scream of Jaune flying to the back of the room.
Left defenseless and stumbling, Akamu could only stand and watch as Pyrrha leaped towards him, another breadstick in her hand. Luckily, the rest of his team had his back, Blake knocking the gladiator from the sky with a well-placed pancake toss to the face and Weiss sending her flying back with a far-too-powerful squirt of mustard.
"This feels like a fever dream." Akamu stated, unsurprised as he found another breadstick, this one longer than the rest he had found.
"No kidding. I don't even know where the book we-" Ruby started before Akamu was suddenly hit in the head with a can of soda he didn't see coming. Taking a tumble, he found himself with his back against the entrance wall, dazed and sticky.
"Run, it's a food fight!" a passing student screamed, the door now opened and the familiar monkey faunus in the entryway, along with a not-so-familiar bluenette.
Suddenly, a maniacal cackling drew Akamu's attention back to the other end of the hall. There sat Nora on top of a stack of tables, along with the rest of Team JNPR. "I'm the queen of the castle, I'm the queen of the castle!"
Slowly, Akamu looked over to Sun. "I-I think I'm just gonna... I need a breather." In all honesty, his head was rocked by that can, his aura not up to protect it, but it was his hair he was most upset about.
Zoning out as he massaged the side of his head, he noticed a small unopened water bottle rolling up to him. Thankful as he took a large swig, he saw as a white blur flew into a pillar, the wreckage falling towards him. Quickly rolling out of the way, the wolf faunus saw Ruby bring out all of her theater kid into a heart-wrenching cry.
"Weiss, please! Weiss, don't leave me! No, nooooo!" She cried, cradling the slightly bruised Weiss, who feigned unconsciousness with a smile on her face.
Slowly, Akamu rose to his full height, stumbling and using the breadstick as a support for dramatic effect. "I'll..." He rocked onto both his feet, making sure the water bottle wasn't sealed as tight as it should have been. "I'll never forgive you for this!" Akamu yelled, pointing his weapon towards the proud Nora, the soda acting as a fake blood across his face.
With a charge mimicking one of the fallen Weiss' he flew himself at Nora, locking weapons in an intense showdown. With a sudden snap of understanding, both combatants burst into a flurry of blows, parries, and blocks against each other. Akamu quickly found himself on the back foot, underestimating the pure martial prowess of this hammer wielding maniac.
'Come on, think, Akamu!'
The sloshing of the water bottle in his pocket alerted him to a new idea. Feigning a low blow, Akamu lept over top of Nora in a cartwheel flip and uncapped the water. Unluckily for Nora, she looked up and got an eyeful of water, blinding her. Dodging under the obvious wild swing, Akamu slipped behind her back and unloaded a four-hit combo, finishing with a stab that sent her flying head-over-heels until she skid to a stop at Pyyrha's feet, who looked back at him with a malice he nearly ran from.
With a fast charge and incomprehensibly fast attacks, Akamu suddenly felt himself a breadstick lighter and a lot more in pain as he flew past Ruby into the exact spot he was before. Again, Akamu look up at Sun. "I think I'll just stay here this time."
"Akamu, no, not you too!" Ruby cried out, looking at him desperately. Noticing he was being looked at, the wolf faunus quickly froze before he feigned death, tongue lolling out of his mouth.
At the same time, a giant hole in the ceiling appeared as Nora stood proud, eyes a little bit more bloodshot. Suspiciously, Yang was suddenly gone from the battlefield. As Akamu lie there, winded from being flung across a great hall at high speeds into an impact against a wall that left a crater, he suddenly found himself pelted by several cans of soda, some of them splashing open.
Out of the corner of his eye, Akamu spotted his fellow faunus falling from the ceiling, calling him into action once more. Again, he rolled, desperate to catch Blake from her fall. With a meaty 'Thud', both faunus lay across the floor, spread eagle.
"My hero..." Blake groaned, coated with soda.
There was a pause as Akamu thought for a moment. Some distant part of his brain felt like that was funny. "... I feel like that's a joke I wasn't here for."
"... Oh yeah. It was during the inauguration. Jaune caught Weiss from a pretty high drop, and she acted all high and mighty as usual."
"Did she say 'My hero?'"
"Of course she did."
"Well, what did Jaune say?"
Blake willed up her best Jaune impression, which sounded more like a squeaky teenager. "My back!"
Akamu snorted. "Mkay, that's pretty funny. Hey, how's the fight going? I'd look but my neck is stiff."
There was a pause. "Looks like it's over... Jeez, Ruby really painted them with soda. I thought we had it bad... Looks like a paintball buk-" Blake caught herself suddenly.
Akamu thought for a moment, delving deep into his understanding of language. Suddenly, a term he saw a few times while looking for reading material popped up, but only on magazines that were less than wholesome.
"... You're gross, Blake."
Blake was quick to shoot back. "Look, I don't judge you for whatever you do in that closet!"
"I read." Akamu replied, finding joy in teasing his teammate.
"... Just shut up."
"Mkay."
Suddenly, a different hole opened in the roof as Yang slammed into a table.
Akamu spoke again. "Should have been her hero."
"I can barely move."
"Fair."
Again, Akamu felt that strange sense he felt in the house, this time for a split second.
There was a nice silence between the two until... "What are you guys still doing on the floor?" Ruby asked, walking up.
"Hurting." Was the only reply Akamu gave.
No matter how much Akamu washed his hair, it felt like it was still sticky, so he found himself in the shower for the third time in the past 24 hours. As he let his hair dry, casually searching what 'Bukkake' really meant on his scroll in a private tab, he felt a compulsion to remember the interview he had with Ozpin after the fight on the docks.
Inside a room that was darkly lit, similar to the last interview room, Akamu sat slowly sipping tea while Ozpin was opposite him.
"I hope you don't mind a quick talk, Akamu." Ozpin said, calmly taking a sip from his own beverage.
"M'fine, just a tiny bit woozy. First time I've really used my launcher." Akamu said, lightly laughing at himself.
Ozpin sighed. "Akamu, I need to know. Did you have any idea, semblance or otherwise, that White Fang would be at the shipyard tonight?"
"No, sir." Akamu said, thinking for a bit. "To be honest, it's surprising that I didn't know anything right up until before the initial explosion. Ruby and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, thankfully."
"And it's surprising, why?" Ozpin asked, slightly leaning forward.
"Normally, I would get alerts of events this big hours in advance, not seconds. Lately, my semblance has been all over the place. Sometimes it will tell me about something so far in the future I can't even imagine how I would end up there, and lately..." Akamu thought for a moment, trying to phrase his next statement. "Professor, have you ever heard of a semblance that can talk?"
Ozpin leaned back, eyes wide with a slight worry. "What do you mean?"
"Like... It has it's own personality. I've only heard it a few times, but it's definitely there. It's been giving me clues with words, not just feeling. And... When I visited the Xiao Long house, there was this room upstairs. I had seen it in a vision I had days after joining Beacon, and when I looked inside I saw... Something. It was like I blinked my eyes and I saw a whole different world. Someone else was sat in the bed and they... Kinda looked like Yang, but a boy, tiny bit younger."
"Interesting." Ozpin said, looking curiously at the silver eyed faunus. "And you're positive of all of this?"
"Dead positive." Akamu said, looking back at the Headmaster.
"Akamu, I..." Ozpin hesitated, calming himself. "If this... Person ever wants to take control, please let me know."
"Okay." Akamu said, plainly.
"I assume that's everything, Mr. Akamu?" A quick nod answered Ozpin's question. "Thank you for your time, and if you have any other questions or concerns, please talk to me. I'm always here for you."
With a close of the door, Akamu snapped back to the present, the rest of his team entering the dorm room, but not before his head was wracked with images of what happened while he was showering. A game board, a Nevermore, an Atlesian fleet being destroyed in an imaginative fashion, along with Grimm forces.
'Look, Semblance, I know you can talk to me, you've done it before, what the hell was all of that!?'
Suddenly, his scroll screen flashed to show his aura was completely gone.
'… You owe me some answers.'
"We should have NEVER let him play!" Yang said, clearly somewhat upset.
Ruby laughed a bit. "Well, somebody's angry the new guy beat them."
"Just like with that video game..." Weiss remarked.
"If you had just attacked when I said, none of this would have happened." Ruby said, in an 'I told you so' way.
The rustling of someone getting out of bed, interrupted the conversation.
"Nope." Weiss said. "You've been quiet, antisocial, and moody!"
Akamu quickly picked up on context. "I don't think you've met Blake." He called out from the bathroom.
"What are you- Ugh, nevermind! Look, Blake, I get that's kind of your thing, but you've been even more antisocial than Akamu lately, and that's unacceptable."
"Ouch..." Akamu said, quietly.
"Look, you made a promise to me, to all of us, that you would let us know if something was wrong." Weiss said authoritatively, before a large noise was heard, making Akamu finally get out of the bathroom. There Weiss stood, atop a chair, balancing it on 2 legs. "So, Blake Belladonna, what is wrong!?"
There was a stunned silence before Weiss realized what she was doing, quickly got off the chair, calmly slid it back into it's rightful place, and finally ended back up with the rest of the girls.
"I just..." Blake started. "I don't understand how everyone is so calm."
Ruby approached. "Still thinking about Torchwick?"
"Torchwick, the White Fang, all of it!" Blake snapped, pacing. "Something big is happening and nobody is doing anything about it!"
"Ozpin told us not to worry." Yang explained. "Between him, the huntsmen, and the police, I'm sure that it's handled."
"Well I'm not! They do not know the White Fang like I do, which gets me even more frustrated because..." Blake looked at Akamu. "You should be just as worried about it as I am!"
Akamu quickly thought up his response. "Honestly, I am. Anytime I'm not studying or training, I'm looking for leads any way I can. This whole thing is just..." Akamu bit back a growl. "This whole situation's fucked and it feels like any lead I can possibly grab goes nowhere, not even a single name. To be honest, I'm terrified someone I know is in Vale as we speak because, if she is, I'm not sure a couple of high-school students can handle this."
"Exactly, we're students! We're not ready to handle this sort of situation!" Weiss said, taking from Akamu's statement.
"And we may never be ready! Our enemies aren't going to just sit around until we graduate. They're out there, somewhere, planning something whether we're ready for it or not!" Blake retorted.
"Alright, then..." Ruby said, a crazy look on her face. "All in favor of becoming the youngest Huntresses, and Hunter, to single-handedly taking down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale... say aye.
"Yes! I love it when you're feisty!" Yang said, a strange look in her eyes as she pointed at Blake.
Weiss thought for a second. "I guess it could be fun."
"Alright, I guess some field recon wouldn't exactly be counter-productive. I'm in!" Akamu said, leaning against the bathroom doorframe.
Ruby looked slightly disappointed. "None of you said aye..."
"Alright, guess we're in this together!" Blake said, excitedly.
"Let's hatch a plan!" Ruby cried.
"My specialty." Akamu said, a smirk across his face.
Yang shot finger guns at her sister and Akamu. "Yeah!"
Suddenly, Ruby gasped. "I left the board game at the library!"
"We're doomed." Weiss said, face in palm.
Quickly, Ruby ran out of the room. "Well, with all that said." Akamu started. "I need a nap."
"Even more doomed." Weiss said, burying her face further into her palm.