Authors Note: Real quick, I updated some chapters that had interactions between June and Summer. I realized I didn't put much into their relationship, or things that would make them similar that would lead to a relationship. The changes include minor ones in chapters 7 and 10, so you don't need to go back and read them, but bigger changes for chapter 9 that I would recommend rereading if you have nothing else to do. I also changed some things with chapter 12, but it's only in the final paragraph and means rereading the whole thing isn't needed. To add, I made these changes a little over a week ago, so if you got into this story in that time, you read the new version. Lastly, with this chapter as evidence, I will be taking a lot longer to write chapters because school is starting and etc, I'm pretty sure most people get it. With that done, here's chapter 15!
Ino was interested in June's trip to Mantle, but all June had said was that it wasn't very glamorous. She went with that, already knowing that Mantle had a bad reputation. The next week had been relaxed, all except for one day. June was a little harder on Ino in the one-on-one training she was giving for each member of JULI. She didn't like it, but knew that June was only trying to make her better. However, she didn't know June's true intention, but she would soon. The week had gone by, and the tournament was on. The first day had no fights including JULI, or STRQ, and JULI would end up fighting on the final day. They were bummed having to wait so long, but they would be the first fight of the day. They would be fighting an Atlas Team. They lined up accordingly, but it seemed that Ino was worried. It wasn't, however, who they were fighting that they were concerned about. June had seemed a little... odd recently. Her training sessions that she gave her seemed more focused on provoking her, in the best way June could show. After every showing of success, June wouldn't give her usual smile and tips on how to improve, and would instead give a disappointed look along with a perfect counter to whatever Ino did. If her intention was to make Ino mad, it had worked, and Ino had a burst and attacked randomly. Ino stopped herself and kept her anger in, embarrassed for a second, but in that short second she could see June's face, it was shock and something else that she couldn't make out in such short time. Ino said sorry about the outburst and June had went up to her and surprised her. June had slapped her in the face. Ino was in shock for a couple of minutes, in that time there was only silence. June broke it by saying that she was done with training for the day, adding that same disappointed tone in her voice.
With that training session and other examples that seemed to only be happening to Ino, she was more worried than her members about June's condition, another reason was that she tried to look after her teammates more than she should have, with not being the team leader. The two arenas that were selected were the Geyser Fields and a beach with a crashed wooden ship. JULI looked at their scrolls, and realized that June had sent them her plan and had taken point in front of them. It was risky, the plan being that the team, except for June, would run for cover on the beach with the ship. The problem was that it was a good distance from the starting point, but that's where June's plan got interesting. In order to shield the team from the inevitable hail fire that the enemy team would fire, June planned to take out one of them after she used her semblance and aura to reflect the fire back. They all knew that she would be eliminated, so they would have to rely on themselves for planning after the first minute. After they all read through, the timer hit zero and the plan had taken in effect. The Atlas Team, once they saw that JULI was heading for the ship, had started to assault them. They would've advanced forward but June had anchored where she was, and was shown to be standing still. The team, however, could tell that their rounds weren't hitting home, and that's when their leader had realized what was happening. Every time the team fired, even not at June, there would be a blur surrounding June and faint afterimages of her where they fired at. When the rest of JULI was behind the ship, June charged the teams major supporting role, and before the other members could realize that she was there, she had knocked the Hunter out of the arena. Before the rest of them could target her, though, she collapsed and her aura flashed and showed cracking around her. The announcers had revealed that June had used up the most of her aura covering her team and that the last use of her semblance to eliminate that Huntsmen had used up the last of it, but June knew that she was going to be eliminated. The student that she had taken out had an automatic weapon that took the most effort to reflect, and she knew that he would be a problem for JULI later and focused on him because of that. The crowd had gotten riled up at this, at first impressed by June's ability to take out ammunition mid-air and then shocked by June's sudden elimination. Most people had seen her in the previous tournament, and very much weren't expecting her to be taken out in the first round. The rest of JULI used the extra time to come up with a plan. Uruclay had a naturally large amount of aura, so he and Levi would stay together with Uruclay taking point. Ino would stay near them but would be mostly on her own, and she would be locked in a one-on-one with the teams leader. His weapon was high-powered sniper that could be sheathed, to say, with the corresponding energy shield to become a sword. The shield part had a metal strip that the sniper barrel went in to, and that part also projected the shield when not being used as the sword. The other two members of the Atlas Team had gone to take out Levi and Uruclay, and it was bad luck that Ino was pitted against the leader. His long range style had countered Ino, with her Muerte Gris being focused on close to mid-range fighting. He fell back to the Geyser Fields for cover, so Ino had to push up going from cover to cover to avoid shots. She would occasionally be hit, which was devastating to Ino's aura because the weapon was already powerful, as well as her aura wasn't as tough as Uruclay's or June's. After she made it to the fields, she had been hit twice and her aura was brought down to almost half. When she got close to him, it was her turn to get her shots on the leader. Ino was able to brute force past his shield because of her close proximity and her usage of explosive, shotgun type rounds she was using, and then she hit him a couple times before he was able to get behind cover. She was able to surprise him, though, by firing rounds on the other side of the geyser he was behind. He was confused why she would fire randomly, but when he came out to show he had changed fighting styles, he ran into her trap. The rounds that she had fired were supposed to confuse him, as the were shot into the ground and implanted to become mines. He stepped on them and they had brought down his aura exponentially while also sending him flying back some distance away. She had gotten into a position beforehand to catch him mid-air, and her jabs with Muerte Gris after his fall had eliminated him. Levi and Uruclay had taken out the opposing duo right before Ino could take out their leader. Although, it seemed the duo would've been a problem at first. They were suppressing Levi and Uruclay, preventing them from getting too close. However, one had been too close to a geyser and took a hit when one erupted. Uruclay took the small time they were confused to charge them, and, before they could fully recover, Levi had fired a charged shot at the support who was hit by the geyser which depleted their aura and eliminated them. Uruclay was able to take out the other in CQC after some fighting. The team was eliminated and JULI had won.
The duos would have a surprising twist. When it came to picking their duo members, JULI decided that taking votes were the best idea, as most teams did. When it came to June, it seemed obvious that she was going to compete, but that's where things would change. If the member they voted to go didn't want to, they didn't have to, and June had decided that she wasn't competing in the duos. Instead, she recommended Ino and Levi. The team was a little surprised, but went with her decision. Ino kept thoughts like this to herself, but she liked that she was able to compete without being overshadowed. Besides, for now it seemed that June was the only one that didn't want to compete, as the rest of JULI enjoyed the fights. The other thing that came as a surprise to Ino, though, is the amount of people that asked them about the decision, seeming curious why they didn't pick June to continue. It irritated her but she ignored it for the time, as it was only people that didn't know who she was. Levi and Ino's match would not be until the second day. June's cold attitude towards Ino didn't stop, but she seemed more relax. It was probably because June didn't have to worry about competing, and she would find herself in the library or talking to Summer in the time up to the fight. Although she didn't care to watch much of the other fights, finding them a little boring, she would watch JULI's fights as well as STRQ's to support them.
Ino and Levi's match was the third one on the second day. They were pit against a Haven Duo, and then they lined up for the fight on opposite sides of the starting area. The environments were chosen, and they would be fighting in the Forest, Ice Fields, Stormy Mountains and the Desert. After they were revealed, the timer started to countdown to their fight, and Levi and Ino were giving ideas for plans with their scrolls in the meantime. It seemed that unlike JULI's other matches, this one would have to be a direct confrontation with one-on-one fights between them. This was because the Haven duo had intercepted their plan and forced them to fight head on against them. Ino ended up fighting the one named Rufus, who seemed to have a heavy weapon style. He had a large bola attached by a chain to a large handle. In the first 20 seconds of the fight, Ino could tell that he focused on heavy hitting instead of speed, as she was able to dodge him with relative ease. She would put more shots into his aura every time she sidestepped an attack. However, she was hit once by the ball and her aura was brought down exponentially, which means that she could only take two more hits before her aura would be brought down below 15 percent. The fight had been brought into the Forrest, and Rufus was cutting down trees in order to find Ino. She would leave traps for him, whittling down his aura slowly. It seemed that his aura was very strong, but he was still playing as cautious as he could while still being aggressive. When it seemed there was no where left to hide for Ino, she went back to where they were fighting before, which was in the Ice Fields. A direct fight with him would put her at a disadvantage, and he knew this, but to his surprise she stayed and fight. With no cover, she couldn't hide any mines, or pull any tricks the same way she did before. The fight had become the sidestepping and dodging that mirrored the first part of their fight. However, Rufus would show what else he could do. When she just barely dodged a hit by the ball, the spikes had went into the weapon and then ejected out. Ino was caught off guard and her aura had taken a lot of damage, although not as bad as when she was hit the first time by the full weapon. She was knocked back, and Rufus started to get close to see about eliminating her. Ino could see that Levi was still in a fight with the other team member, so she had to make sure that she wasn't eliminated. Thankfully, it seemed that he walked right into her trap. Her semblance, as it turns out, made it seem like she had a small aura reserve, but the passive part of her semblance would deplete her aura twice as much for the damage she took. Every time her aura was depleted, though, her aura would "shed" and leave a minefield. Since it was aura as well, it was completely invisible to the human eye, and it could also lure Grimm away from things. When she first discovered it, she could only cause explosions at her command, but with training she could change what happened when it was activated. Rufus had stepped on this part, and she had caused an explosion where he stood. She exploded the exact amount that she would need to eliminate him. Before she could go help Levi, though, the smoke had cleared and Rufus had looked fine. Now his semblance was revealed. His heavy nature not only came from his strong aura, but by the fact that he could, in exchange for aura, harden it to the point where it was basically impenetrable. He was expecting something, so he was keeping his guard up the whole time. The explosion had still taken a part of his aura, and with him using his semblance, a large portion of his aura was gone. Ino had put everything in that, so she didn't know what she was going to do. She started to run towards the desert area, and Rufus had done something to prevent that. The ejected spikes that he had shot out could explode on command and Ino didn't notice that she ran past one. It detonated and knocked her down, taking only a little bit of aura because she was too far for it to be devastating. The damage was also too small to use her semblance effectively, as the power of the mines were proportional to how much damage she took. Rufus had started to approach her, keeping his distance to stay safe. Right before he could get too close, though, he lost his balance and started to float. When he looked up at Ino, she had took aim and shot him dead on. He used the last of his aura to shield against the shot, but he was knocked down to the floor and Ino had exploded the area around him. Without enough aura to protect himself with his semblance, he was eliminated by his aura going below 15 percent. He realized what had happened after it. The reason he started to float was because he walked into the area he hit her the first time in the fight. It had been there the whole time, so she used it to flip the gravity and then shot him into the other field she left to eliminate him. Knowing what his semblance was beforehand, she only used half of the field in the past explosion she did in order to use the other half just in case. She had planned all of it. She went to assist Levi, who was pinned in a long range battle with the other member. With her help, he was able to push up and take out the enemy a couple minutes later. The fight was over, and JULI would choose one of them to move on to the next round.
The day break before the final round was the opposite of a break for Ino, being much more hectic than last year. It was mostly because the team had picked her over Levi. She didn't realize how stressful the position would be. She would've sympathized with June about being a final contestant because of how stressful it was, but she continued to act rude and became part of the reason for her stress. Ino also didn't like getting advice from June, feeling that it would just make her own win seem not as good. However, she did know that she needed it, and that was another reason she didn't like it. She kept that thinking to herself, though, reasoning that it wouldn't help to think about it or talk about it. June would force her into a training session, and although she didn't want it, she agreed to it anyway. Same as before June was especially harsh, but not as bad as last time, no slapping out of the blue. Ino would end up fighting the first day, and she was very nervous before the battle. All of JULI would support her; however, it seemed that June wasn't there before she went into the ring.
She lined up on the ring against an Atlas student. Her name was Sakura Hitto, and she seemed in both parts similar and opposite of Ino. She had blonde hair and was very open and jumpy. Her outfit seemed odd, though, as she wore a long sleeved sweatshirt but then wore shorts that were similar to Ino's. She also wore a backpack that seemed electronic and metal, and it made the outfit even more sporadic. Unfortunately, she didn't do any research on the final contestants because she was too nervous, and it seemed that June wasn't trying to help her anymore. It was her fault and she didn't mind June not being able to take any credit for her win. She put it aside, needing to figure out who she was fighting, and it seemed that she was very social. She was trying to talk to Ino, and she would've liked the gesture if they weren't going to be fighting soon. Another reason was that she seemed to be able to read people, and she was very open about it. She pointed out that Ino seemed awfully nervous, and Ino just tried to ignore her for the time being. The countdown had started and they both got ready. It reached zero and Sakura had started to run towards her, Ino preparing to see what she could do. Ino seemed confused at first, as Sakura was only using basic CQC. She was skilled at it, though, showing that she knew some form of fighting. Ino, not being skilled in any fighting styles, didn't know what it could be or if she was even right. The fight was full of close range slashes from Ino that hit Sakura more often than she thought they would. It seemed that she wasn't very fast, but she would still get hits on Ino every once in awhile. She was slow, but it seemed that she was getting more hits on Ino the more the fight went on. Ino decided that retreating before she could hit her and attacking her at range would be better for herself. She started to run around the ring, getting close to the edge, but keeping her distance from it. Instead of getting closer and chasing her, though, Sakura had started to bring up her arm while she tried to dodge shots from Ino. There seemed to be a scroll, or some other device on her wrist. When she was done, she had started to fire back from her arms. It appeared that she had guns of some sort hidden under her sleeves, and she was firing back. The shots had hit hard, but Ino started to dodge them to prevent losing more aura. Although she seemed dumb, Ino knew that Sakura had to have been picked for a reason by her team. For a second, she thought of the circumstances that that got her there, but she ignored it as she would get too unfocused. Ino decided to catch her off guard with her semblance, the same thing she did with Rufus. However, she knew that it would be predictable, as Atlas students were known to take their fights very seriously and do their research beforehand. She knew that she would have to catch her off guard unless she randomly got a new ability, which seemed highly unlikely. Ino changed tactics and got closer to Sakura, and the two met with each other and started another bout of close up fighting. Sakura found her sudden fighting change suspicious and suspected there was a tactical reason for doing it, instead of it being a way to impress the crowd. As the fight went on, Ino found that she was being pushed more and more, as Sakura now used a shotgun infused fighting style that made her punches hit harder, so she would have to do something soon. Luckily for her, it worked out in her favor, as the fight had moved on to an area where she was damaged before. All of sudden, Sakura lost her balance and started to float. Sakura was waiting for the moment she showed her semblance and had decided to show her weapon, the Durate Verdadate's, true form. Her backpack had fully undone and created an exo-suit around her. The mechanism activated, along with anti-gravity dust crystals to bring her back on her feet. The crystals had another purpose too, as they were used to increase her speed and get rid of the weight added on by the exo-suit which, as well as some of her own weight. Though the suit was heavy, it was designed as a series of braces attached to the back of her arms and legs and was also put on her spine. Something else that went with her weapon, or suit, was that she had electronic contacts that would provide an increase reaction time that allowed her to go at such fast speeds. This was the Durate Verdadate's full capabilities. Ino started to fire at Sakura before the suit fully deployed, but she was able to dodge them, or use her aura to prevent damage to the suit. When it was done, her speed was comparable to a base June, of which Ino hadn't been able to outrun yet. Ino wouldn't be able to dodge the next hit, and because of her semblance and Sakura's now increased strength, it would be devastating. This development made her start to think about how she got there. She didn't suppress the thoughts this time, with being voted in and not doing research on her opponents, but still thinking June would help her. Sakura had rushed for Ino, her speed would make the first hit happen in seconds, and Ino didn't know what to do. She couldn't contain her emotions anymore, and the burst had proven to be useful, contrary to what she thought. In the split second before Sakura would hit her, Ino had instinctively dodged to the left. Sakura was put into shock for a second, which Ino took advantage of and released a hail fire of dust at her backpack. Sakura pulled back and was left with a malfunctioning suit, but she was still able to move. Ino had destroyed the systems that controlled the arms, so she called them back. Before she could start to rush Ino again, however, she found that she couldn't move. The problem was that she had stepped into one of Ino's fields, which had frozen her legs. The ice was strong enough to hold her in place even with her suits strengths enhancements. For once, Ino understood how to use her emotions to her benefit, and the sudden burst had advanced her semblance and allowed her to form ice from the mine fields. Her increased speed had let her fire the Muerte Gris far faster than she could before, being almost as fast as a fully automatic pistol. The gunfire was a mix of fire, explosive and electric dust rounds, with the electric rounds damaging Sakura's suit. Being immobilized, Sakura could only dodge some of the rounds, and her aura was brought very close to the 15 percent mark after half-a-minute of firing. When it seemed that Ino was out of ammo, Sakura tried again to escape the ice. The ice had loosened, and she was about to get out, but Ino had other plans. Another new ability she discovered was that she could change the form her shredded aura could take, unless it was already blown up. The ice had had become loose because Ino had made it into a bomb. Before Sakura could get a leg out, Ino detonated the ice, and the blast had brought her aura down past the mark, while also knocking her out of bounds. Her emotions were still jumbled, but she was still very excited about winning her match with her own wits.
She was still equally parts mad and happy about the win. With June's behavior and her general attitude towards Ino in the past week, she was surprised to see that the first person who greeted her was June. When she was getting closer, she decided that she shouldn't hide her feelings anymore and would tell her how she felt. However, before she could start talking, June took her in a big hug and started to talk very excitedly. "That was awesome," was the first thing June had said, and following that she started to talk about the skill one needed to have to counter something that countered them and that her new abilities were very good. Ino was awfully confused and pushed June away for a second. June realized what that meant, and put herself together and started to explain. June was acting very strict to Ino because she needed to see her get emotional, knowing how powerful an outburst would be if she could use it. She then added her sudden speed boost in training had impressed her and confirmed that Ino needed to let loose to become more powerful. This explained what that other emotion was Ino saw her face in the split second, and June had also explained that her constant bottling of emotions had led to slow advancement of her skills, so she needed to eventually let them out to properly find what else she could do. Ino had burst out, angry that she intentionally acted that rude. "I'm really sorry. I didn't want to do it, but I needed to see if it would work," June had said this sounding extremely guilty, but Ino didn't want it and went off. Ino had run into Sakura on her way to leave the stadium, and tried to avoid her. Sakura had ran up to her when she saw her, and wanted to talk. Ino thought it would be full of hate, but it was the opposite as she treated her with respect and it seemed as if she looked up to her. Ino asked about the way she was acting, and her response was simple. Sakura had found it as a friendly competition that let her meet new people, which was the point in the Vytal Festival anyway. Ino understood her and eased up about talking to her. Sakura had also added that she liked seeing other semblances in action and thought hers was cool. They talked for a bit and Sakura had asked about her mood while adding that she seemed down even though she just won her match. Ino didn't go in detail about it, but she told her that her team leader was treating her unfairly and acting weird. Sakura had said that was surprising, but added that she hadn't gotten to meet her to know. Before they could continue, though, June had come up to tell Ino that the airship was leaving. Ino only sighed and said goodbye to Sakura, but ignored June when she went off. June was going to wait a bit to give Ino space, and Sakura had seemed interested in talking to her. She asked her about Ino being mad at her, and June told her that she tried something that may have backfired when it came to their relationship. Sakura added that she understood it can be hard for a leaders teammates to realize what the intention was, but also added that, after some time, she should feel better. "Thanks," June responded, and Sakura had pulled her into a conversation. She seemed interested in June's semblance, finding that it was also interesting. The way she talked about it made it seem that she was obsessed with semblances, and June had asked her about her fondness for them. "Oh, I find them interesting because I haven't discovered mine yet," was her reasoning. June showed a little shock, realizing that she was lucky to find hers at such a young age. While not having one of her own yet had been a reason for her liking semblances, another was that she found them very unique and that advancing one actually took training insterad of improving technology like she's forced to do. June said that she must of been a positive woman in order to find the good in not finding hers yet, but had to leave before the airship back to Atlas had left. June said goodbye to Sakura, adding that she hoped she found out what it was one day. June joined JULI on the way down...
