{1.} In regards to future Semblances, I've been debating with myself about what Eren's, Levi's, and Mikasa's Semblances would be, and what they would do. That said, with the help of FullmetalDeadman93, who I threw around some ideas with a long while ago (a few years, maybe?), I do have a few good ideas for Semblance concepts in general, which I think will make it into the actual story. Armin will have a Semblance too, and I've already made a choice on what that would be. You might be surprised.
{2.} Believe it or not, I highly encourage commenting. Constructive criticism is something I like to have, at least from people who seem interested in helping me improve my writing. After all, this fic is my main pride and joy, and it was my first story on this site, which in itself is filled with plenty of amazing authors who've written some fantastic stories. That said, if you're just gonna hate on this story for no other reason than simply because you don't like it, and you have nothing constructive or helpful or useful to add, then I want you to know that this is my fic. If you don't like it, then tough. When I first decided to write this fanfic, I was writing mostly for myself, and I still am, to some degree. The only reason I give myself the deadlines I do is because of the simple fact that people actually read this fic. The fact that there are people interested in this fic, who follow and favourite this fic even still to this day, encourages me to work more on and for this fic, for myself and for them. And yes, I realise that might sound a bit cheesy. That being said, I don't like getting firm with people, and I feel like I should apologise to those who enjoy this fic and who felt uncomfortable reading this. This message isn't for the ones who like this fic, but for those who have nothing constructive or helpful to add but decide to hate on this fic anyway.
{3.} Anyway, for anyone who might be curious, I often tend to write this fic as I would like to see it if it was animated. I mean, I like to think of it as if it was the actual anime version of AOT, but just with RWBY and other characters incorporated into it. In fact, if you don't do that already, you could try to envision this fic as if it was animated. Also, on that note, I'd love to see that happen to this fic – it actually being animated, I mean. You can let me know in a review whether you'd like to see that, too.
{4.} As for the device that sent Team RWBY to the AOT world, I am aware that it stretches the lore of Remnant quite a bit, though I'm simply relying on the fact that this is fanfiction and so I feel it would be okay to do so via creative liberty and all. Not everything may be incredibly accurate, given that the world of Remnant is still a bit of a mystery, and there are still things we may not know. So I'm sure it is acceptable – to some degree – that I can write my story based on certain theories or assumptions, which I will ensure are accurate, even if I have to resort to theories that may not turn out/have not turned out to be correct. That said, if that happens, those theories may still be included if they are reasonable enough and make sense.
Athena
Despite the numerous, translucent, violet swords sticking out of its body at various places, pinning it to the house behind it, the Titan directly facing her still appeared to be alive. Almost standing, too; though, its position against the building looked a bit too awkward to properly look at without wincing at least once.
She'd barely spared it a glance when she'd crawled by it, some minutes earlier. But she'd sat herself down just across from it anyway, primarily because she thought it a curious sight.
Not necessarily the Titan itself, though its strained position could reasonably seem funny due to the oddity of how awkward it looked; but rather, Athena had become somewhat curious about the translucent, purple swords pinning it down. Those violet swords appeared to be keeping the Titan stuck in that position, as if they'd either been used as a means to paralyse the Titan, or were meant to keep the Titan restrained or paralysed as long as they stayed lodged in its body.
She hadn't really seen too many examples of abilities like this, like the one before her, being used against the Titans. She'd only managed to catch a glimpse of them when those humans in the green capes went out on expeditions, and even then, those occasions tended to be few and far between. She'd often noticed these abilities being used by a small amount of those humans – some girls, specifically – whose uniforms and gear looked modified. Those girls had often been the only ones who'd also forgone the green capes.
She still had yet to understand those kinds of abilities, or how those particular girls could use them. After all, from what Athena had seen of them, plus this new group of girls apparently from a different world, they all appeared to possess a power that little to none of the other humans within the walls seemed to possess.
Her back currently rested against the wall of what seemed to be the HQ's main tower, the stone making up its structure bearing a dark shade of grey. She didn't know if the building's shade perhaps only looked darker as a result of the sky also turning dark. Despite her questions, she could at least say she happened to be safe in the knowledge that all her human friends had managed to enter this same tower, despite how each and every single one of them had pretty much just thrown themselves through some window or another just to get in and claim some small semblance of safety.
Athena huddled her legs closer, her thighs almost pressing against her front.
When will the weather become nice again?
At least she wasn't cold. Her Titan body carried and emitted too much heat for any outside force, like the weather, to really make her cold – even if some days did end up being dark and cold and gloomy.
A sharp, metallic-sounding crack came from the Titan opposite.
Her attention snapped back to the Titan. It didn't appear to have broken any part of its body (which was a bit surprising, given its position), but there did now happen to be a crack on each and every one of the violet swords holding it in place.
Blinking, Athena cocked her head at the sight.
Strange. I may not know what they are made of, but if they can hold that Titan there like that, then those swords must be strong. Why is it they are close to breaking now? I doubt the Titan is causing it. It looked like they have been stopping it from moving much at all, so it should not be able to exert the kind of strength necessary to cause them to loosen their hold.
A second crack rattled one of the swords, then the rest.
Those swords are going to break. Uncurling her form, Athena planted her palms on the ground, and pushed herself off the stone, into a crouched position. Raising her hands up in front of her, level with her shoulders, she left her fingers to hover in a slack position. As much as she'd rather not stand and fight right now, while she was still running low on energy from the lack of sunlight, she'd be left with no choice if the Titan broke free.
So, she'd prepare herself. She had to; for those in the tower.
Jean Kirschtein
Jean stopped on the ridge of another rooftop, pausing at the edge of the building's thinner side. The group hadn't been going for all that long before Mikasa and Blake had fallen, with the last of Mikasa's gas supply tapping out, and from what Jean could see, they hadn't made it much farther after that, either.
"It's no use; we're not getting anywhere near Headquarters," he said, mostly to himself, his voice bitter with irritation. "Unless, of course, if we don't mind dying," he added under his breath, hoping no-one heard him. His gaze trailed down the building, toward the street below.
Five Titans stood in the street, in front of the building he'd stopped on. Three Titans were either scratching at or trying to climb up the wall below him; and, when he peered, carefully, over the rooftop's edge, hoping to get a more exact headcount of all the Titans he could find taking up the road, Jean quickly found himself instantly meeting the wide-eyed, empty stare of at least two of the Titans clawing at his side of the building.
His shoulders hunched and his form grew tense as he visibly cringed, face contorting into a look of obvious disgust and discomfort. He pulled himself back upright and averted his gaze elsewhere along the street below.
Maybe there were some smaller Titans crawling around that he hadn't noticed yet. If he found any, he'd at least have more to add to the ever-growing list of things to avoid, avoid, avoid.
At the sound of someone's shallow, panicked, gasping cries, Jean's gaze flew toward the left end of the street, where the cries seemed to originate.
A lone soldier stood in the middle of the street, facing one of the buildings that stood as part of the row of houses facing the rest of the group. With his grapple-hooks lodged high up in the building's front wall, his wires trailing down the wall and along the ground, measuring the space between him and the building, and then the way he was holding both swords up in front of him, his blades almost crossed over, as if to offer a last-ditch attempt at some sort of defence, he absolutely appeared to be stranded down there.
From the emission on the small of his back, he tried firing his gas, only for a small puff of it to escape through the slot in the device. He seemed to try again however, as a second puff of gas sputtered out of his emission.
Shit. He's out of gas!
The poor bastard had ended up shit out of luck, apparently. With his gas supply having been drained, it looked like he would die down there, his head rolling down the gullet of a Titan.
Jean didn't even know the poor Cadet's name.
Worse still, Jean and the others couldn't really do anything to help him get away or get out of there; unless, of course, any one of them wanted to risk running out of what little gas they had left in an attempt to take on every single one of those Titans down there. And since they'd already lost Eren early-on in the battle, followed by Mikasa, Blake, Armin, and Weiss on the way here, just to get to this point...
Well, if Jean were to say he didn't feel all that confident about their chances of success, it'd be one hell of a fucking understatement.
If Jean sent his group down there, then he may as well have turned his blades on them and killed them all himself. And he'd never in his life entertained that idea. Not before, not now, and he doubted he ever would.
He heard the Titans before he could see them. Hard, heavy stomping sounds followed every step of a pair of Titans, as they made toward the Cadet in the street. Said Cadet whirled in place to face the oncoming Titans, one probably measuring six metres in height, and the other probably ten metres, if not somewhat taller.
The Cadet let out some sort of noise between a hollow cry and a rather loud whimper. "Stay back!"
He didn't have to watch this. He knew how this would end.
The least he could do was make sure none of the others met his same fate in an attempt to save him. He might not be able to save one, but he could at least stop the rest from putting themselves in the position of needing to be saved.
But before he could even think of how to tell his peers as much, a pair of anchors shot past his left-hand side, followed by their attached wires.
"TOM! I'LL SAVE YOU!"
Another Cadet – one that, at first glance, seemed to look a bit like Eren – blew past Jean, flying straight into the street; into the Titan trap below.
"No! Wait!" Jean's eyes shot wide open as his gaze followed the Cadet.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK.
Another Cadet, this time a girl, burst past Jean's right – flying into the fray to help Tom and his friend. "I'm coming!"
Not again! Another Cadet from their group?!
Damn it!
With both large, thick hands, a Titan grabbed Tom and lifted him up off the ground. As it held Tom in front of its face, tears spilled from Tom's wide eyes and streamed down his face, his mouth hanging open only to let more panicked, frantic, hollow cries escape his throat, his cries growing louder and sounding more like breathless, shallow screams. He kept shaking his head, again and again and again, from one side to the other, while, the Titan simply continued to lift Tom up, bringing him closer to its mouth.
The amount of abject fear in Tom's eyes couldn't be described in words. It couldn't be helped, either.
Tom's friend, the other male Cadet, pulled his arms back, his swords poised around his right side, readying them for a heavy cut. He flung himself at the Titan holding Tom, the Titan standing with its back to Tom's friend. "STOP IT!"
Holy shit, it looked like he actually had a clean shot to take out the Titan! He might seriously have a chance to save Tom—!
In an instant, another large hand caught Tom's friend, all-too-abruptly snatching him up and crushing him in its fist, swiftly cutting short his life with a fair few muffled snaps, cracks, and wet-sounding squishing noises. Blood spewed from in-between the all-too-large fingers and palm, crimson spilling and dripping down the Cadet's legs as they dangled, eerily still, from within the fist. What little could be seen of his body – now a corpse – was now slumped over and limp; and where the rest of his body was hidden inside the fist, his form was likely mangled. Too mangled for his death to not have been instant.
Jean froze then and there, his eyes flying wide open. He barely registered his teeth pressing together, almost bared in a half-assed scowl.
That—that wasn't supposed to happen.
Tom's screams seemed to grow louder after that – now that his friend was gone, dead, and with him, Tom's best chance of being saved. He stopped shaking his head, and instead simply trembled in the Titan's grasp, just staring at the Titan's mouth as it opened.
With a sickening, squelching crunch that almost made Jean throw up, Tom's screams were abruptly cut off. Tom's blood poured out of where the Titan's teeth tore into his body, splattering across the Titan's teeth and arms, while streams splashed and formed shallow pools on the ground below.
…That didn't have to happen.
Why couldn't I stop them?
Once it was finished eating, the Titan dropped what remained of Tom, only to turn and gather with the rest of the Titans, who were standing only a couple feet before Jean, each Titan's back turned almost directly to face him. One of the Titans, who was standing in the centre of the group huddle, was holding the female Cadet who'd flew into the fray after Tom's friend.
Why didn't I stop them?
Much like Tom, tears ran down the poor Cadet's cheeks. Her teeth chattered as she trembled.
The central Titan lifted her closer and closer to its mouth, and she let out a horrible, blood-curdling, screaming cry. She screamed again, louder this time; almost as if she thought that by crying out louder, they would be more inclined to help – to actually do something to save her, instead of just standing around here looking useless as they watched her final moments.
But, as inclined as Jean did already happen to be, he... he couldn't. He could, as could the others with him, but attempting to help, to take on those Titans, would only cost more lives than it already had. As callous as it might sound, Tom and his friend had proven a good example.
For the sake of every other Cadet behind him, and for his own conscience, sanity, and life, Jean wouldn't send himself or his friends down there. Couldn't.
Enough soldiers had died today, and they had to be only halfway through the day. He didn't want to be the reason why more had to, especially if it could be avoided.
Still...
I wasn't meant to lead.
A few more of her cries echoed across the street and in Jean's ears, with her loudest scream all too soon becoming the last one she ever let out.
I'm the last person that should've been give the reigns.
His hold on the grips of his swords became iron-clad. The muscles around his eyes became tense, and his brows furrowed as he considered closing his eyes in order to avoid watching the Titans as they gorged on the body of one of his peers.
A flashing blur of crimson darted past the back of the central Titan's neck. As red rose petals fluttered about in the wake of the blur, a darker burst of crimson spurted from a deep, wide gash that stretched across the Titan's neck. The Titan collapsed, limply, and crashed face-first into the ground, though Jean pointedly ignored it. His widened eyes trailed after the red blur, watching it swiftly and smoothly swerve up through the air, still leaving dozens of rose petals in its wake.
The red blur unravelled, revealing itself to be a vaguely-familiar, mainly-red jacket, being worn by the one and only girl from Team RWBY who'd been unaccounted for until now.
Ruby Rose. Yang's sister, and the team's leader.
Swinging herself around to face the group of Titans from her left side, Ruby moved to hold her gun-scythe around her right side, and raised her left hand. A deep-red, shimmering sparkle appeared on the tips of her index and middle fingers as she flexed them, clenching the rest of her hand into a fist.
"Support Style, Basic Capture Art Six: Dozen Strikes of Imprisonment!"
With a flick of her wrist, four thin, fairly-wide, rectangular beams of glowing scarlet light burst forth from the spark at Ruby's fingertips. Each beam flew toward one of the four remaining Titans making up the group that'd gathered in front of Jean. As each beam reached above each Titan's head, all four beams split, with each beam becoming three smaller beams. Each set of three smaller beams swirled down around each Titan, before they slammed into each Titan's body, halfway down the torso and back of each Titan. The forms of all four Titans briefly flashed a faint scarlet as the beams apparently rendered each one of them immobile.
…Wait.
Had she really paralysed them? It appeared so. In fact, it appeared as if the beams were somehow managing to restrict the movements of all four Titans, to the point where they could hardly even move a muscle, despite how their massive sizes and incredible strength should allow them to break free of the beams that looked rather small by comparison.
Even so, he could use this.
The eyes of every Titan were trained on Ruby, following her every move while they themselves couldn't even move an inch.
This was the perfect opportunity to run; to use their distraction to his advantage.
"Let's go!" Jean called out, throwing a glance over his shoulder, at the group behind him. As the eyes of every other Cadet flicked toward him, he turned back towards the Titans. "Make a break for HQ while they're distracted!"
He took a leap off the edge of the rooftop, using a tiny burst of his gas to better propel himself forward, and landed on the rooftop ahead. As soon as his boots hit the tiles, however harshly, he burst into a sprint across the rooftop's canopy.
The sound of a gunshot, although quieter than expected, echoed throughout the area. A spinning crimson blur followed, darting past him, leaving red rose petals in its wake, before slowing down as Ruby again burst from the blur. Her red-soled boots immediately hit the tiles, and she began running alongside him. She held her rather large scythe low, the staff next to her left side, the farthest side from Jean, while the scythe's blade and muzzle hung a bit far in front of her, the blade's tip scratching and scraping the tiles ever so slightly on occasion.
"Were my teammates with your group earlier?" Ruby asked, sparing a look up at him from the corner of her eye. She and Jean simultaneously jumped from the edge of the rooftop and landed on the one directly ahead, only for them to swiftly resume their sprint. "I haven't seen my teammates since we were at HQ, and it was only after the inner gate was finally shut that I found out about Squall and Athena."
…Hadn't she been separated from everyone else that'd been accounted for up to this point? And, at least from what Jean had seen, the other girls had been either too stressed by the situation or two busy fighting to try contacting her via those Scrolls they carried with them, so he doubted they would've told her about Squall's arrival or anything about Athena.
Then again, it could've been Spring. Since, as it turned out, she also originally came from Remnant, she would also have a Scroll, wouldn't she? Maybe Spring was the one to inform her of Squall and Athena at some point.
Ruby spared a cautious glance around her then, though she didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular until she shook her head and spared another look up at Jean. "By the way, do you know anything about some Scout called Lieutenant Tsubaki?"
The name wasn't exactly familiar to him, but he had a feeling he'd heard the name Tsubaki before. Then again, whoever this Lieutenant Tsubaki happened to be, they were apparently a Scout, according to Ruby, and he didn't particularly care for the Scouts all that much, so maybe that was why he couldn't exactly remember hearing of anyone with that name before. Hell, the only Scouts he even really knew of were Commander Erwin and Captain Levi.
"Nothing comes to mind. Then again, if you're looking for any real info on the Scouts, I'm probably the last person you should ask," he told her. "The only Scouts I've heard of are Commander Erwin and Captain Levi, and that's just because they're kind of famous, I guess."
"Oh. Is there anyone you think might know?"
"If Weiss has managed to keep Armin alive, then probably him. Otherwise, you might be better off asking Spring. Not that she really had any mind to talk, last time I saw her."
Ichigo Kurosaki
Team SCAR's dorm room actually happened to be pretty spacious, though Ichigo couldn't tell if that had to be because the room itself looked fairly big, or because the room's layout had been set in such a way that made the room look more spacious than it would've otherwise looked with any other layout.
When he'd first walked in earlier, he and Byakuya had immediately been met with the sight of a big, rectangular, four-pane window sitting in the middle of the far wall, which faced the door. The four panes were bordered in white, while dull-crimson curtains hung at either side of the window, drawn and set close to where each side of the window hung attached to the wall. Along the bottom of the window, a broad, black, wooden panel laid, reaching from one end to the other and spanning the entire length of the window, as it made up the windowsill.
Just below the windowsill, a low, dark, wooden bookshelf sat pressed against the wall, its length in line with that of the window above. It was bordered by a side panel on either side, along with an almost-flat bottom panel, which laid on the floor and propped up the entire bookshelf, and a top panel, of similar size to the bottom panel while it propped up five more neatly-arranged piles of books.
A pair of beds stood on either side of the room, the cover on each one a different colour. On his left-hand side as he'd walked in, he'd found a bed with a royal-purple cover sitting pressed against a bed with a royal-blue cover. On the other side of the room, a bed with a near-golden cover sat pressed against the side of a bed with a deep-red cover.
Currently, Ichigo was sat on the floor, at the end of the bed with the purple cover. He'd assumed it to be Shaye's bed, considering she was currently sitting next to the other, outer side of it, her back facing the back wall as a trekker backpack, mainly matte-black with faded-violet accents and smaller white details, sat beside her right thigh. The secondary, faded-violet pocket on the centre of the backpack's body had been unzipped, and currently sat wide open.
Shaye had asked him to help gather some of her equipment, which she apparently kept under her bed.
After feeling around for anything sharp in the space under Shaye's bed, his fingertips grazing the dull-crimson floor carpet here and there, his hands soon caught what felt like a handle he'd expect to find on some sort of briefcase or suitcase. He blinked, before pulling one hand back and planting his palm flat on the floor, beside his thigh, using his hand to prop himself up as he lowered himself down toward the same side, in an effort to get a decent, solid look at whatever piece of Shaye's arsenal he'd found now.
A matte-black, bar-shaped handle, attached via a short, and rather thick, silver pipe at each end, hung from the middle of the long side of what looked to be a broad, silver-bordered, matte-black, rectangular case. The handle hung over the line across the middle of the case's side, with the handle also bearing the same line across it along the middle, as if it would also split along with the case's side if the case itself were to be opened.
Ichigo's other hand, resting on the handle, wrapped around the matte-black grip. Pulling the case out toward himself, he straightened back up and shuffled backwards to accommodate the entire case and the space it took up.
There weren't really any identifiable emblems or markers on the rest of it. It simply looked like a normal, matte-black case which happened to be bordered in a silver metal, and which probably could be used to carry a guitar, given its size. He wouldn't be surprised if it actually had been used for that purpose at one point. Still, since he'd found it just sitting under Shaye's bed, it'd be reasonable to assume that it belonged to her, and from what he currently knew about Shaye, he doubted that she just-so-happened to have a passion for playing the guitar.
Then again, he'd briefly thought the same about the Soul Reapers he'd met when he went to Soul Society to save Rukia, and yet he'd still encountered Shūhei playing a guitar he'd somehow came to own, as crap as he'd been when Ichigo first heard him playing it. So, perhaps he shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the idea that one of Shaye's hobbies just-so-happened to include guitar playing.
"Didn't take you for a musician," he called out, leaning backward and slightly toward his right. He managed to catch a glimpse of Shaye looking up and blinking at him before she was crawling around the side of the bed, on her hands and knees.
She stopped directly at his right. As her gaze landed on the case, her eyes grew a little wider. Then her eyes narrowed and her brows furrowed.
Ichigo cocked his head to one side at her reaction. "What's that look for? What's in here? If it's a guitar—"
"It's not," she cut him off, her voice low and quiet, but her tone serious and... a bit darker than usual – the kind of tone he'd been on the receiving end of a few times already, with it most often being used by a few particular Captains of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. Given his experience, he was inclined to believe he'd somehow crossed a line here, just like he'd apparently done nearly every other time someone had spoken to him that way; and especially since Shaye, who tended to be pretty hard to read, was now speaking to him with that same kind of intensity. "In there is a weapon. One I don't want anyone to touch. If you want to keep your hands, you should put it back under the bed and leave it alone."
Her tone took a turn into a more defensive level near the end, as if the threat she'd spat at him in such a half-assed manner had indeed just been empty words – just some kind of reflexive phrase she used to put up a wall that she hoped would make people think twice about prying into her business, or prevent people attempting to peek through any cracks in that wall.
And, in true Kurosaki fashion, Ichigo wasn't gonna have that at all.
"Right. Because that doesn't sound like you've got a lot of baggage tied to it," he told her, rolling his eyes. His hands roamed around and across the handle as he tried to find any button or latch which would let him open the case. He found a button at either end of the matte-black grip. Both buttons sat attached to the interior side of the grip, facing the case's side.
His fingertips just barely grazed either button when Shaye slammed her hand down, flat, on the case's main, top face. Her glare looked almost murderous as her eyes trailed to one side to meet his. "I said, leave it alone. What part of that was not clear to you?" she practically growled.
Ichigo crossed his arms. He levelled her with a deadpan glare. "It was clear – I just decided to ignore it because you're full of shit and you're trying to hide whatever's in there."
"It's none of your business anyway. Why are you so concerned about it?"
"Because you're acting defensive about it, and you don't usually get defensive about anything. If whatever's in there isn't all that important to you, then you wouldn't be so quick to try and hide it."
Her eyes twitched.
A light seemed to originate behind him, its glow a faint white. The sound of what sounded like the shuffling and sliding of wood had him turning away from Shaye, and instead moving to face the Senkaimon that'd suddenly appeared some feet behind him.
The last set of the Senkaimon's wooden doors slid open.
Byakuya and Izuku stepped out of the light of the Senkaimon first, followed by two other boys Ichigo was sure he hadn't yet met. One of the other boys stood quite a bit taller than Izuku, probably around 5'7" or thereabouts – close to Ichigo's own height, anyway, and with hair that looked just as spiky, though this guy's hair looked like an ash-blond instead of Ichigo's signature orange. This guy's irises also looked scarlet, and his eyes looked almost as big as Izuku's, despite the fact they seemed to be set in a perpetually-irritated glare, which Ichigo could still see despite the jagged, mainly-black mask covering the upper half of his face.
He also noted the blond's outfit. Considering he'd seemingly come from Izuku's world, and was probably one of Izuku's friends, Ichigo figured the blond was wearing what had to be his own Hero Costume. It was mainly made up of black, with orange parts here and there, and green parts, too. The most green could be found on his rather large, grenade-shaped gauntlets, which sat on and hid either forearm.
Unlike the blond, the face of the second boy was set in only a neutral expression, as well as what looked like a large, red burn scar over and around his left eye, from his eyebrow down to his cheekbone. His eyes were heterochromatic, his left iris being more of a teal colour, while his right iris seemed to be more of a mix of grey and brown. His straight, almost bowlcut-like hair also happened to be two different colours, split down the middle, the right side of his hair being white, and the left side of his hair being a distinctive red. He also looked about as tall as Ichigo, too, if not a little taller.
This second boy also wore what appeared to be a blue jacket tucked into blue pants, the main part of what Ichigo thought to be his Hero Costume. A thick vest, made up of what looked like a stiff, crimson fabric with plates of metal embedded across the surface, wrapped around his shoulders and underarms, seeming to lead around to and cover the square of his back. Similarly-designed wristbands laid wrapped around his wrists, reaching from the heels of either hand to somewhere just a little up either forearm. Ichigo glanced over the drab-coloured utility belt, before noting the fact this guy's boots were nearly all-white, save for a few buttons across the top of the feet.
Izuku, on the other hand, was dressed somewhat casually, with a white shirt that simply said 'T-shirt' across it in kanji being the most notable piece of his getup. He also wore a hooded, blue jacket, the sleeves of which had been pushed up to his elbows, and a pair of dark cargo shorts that reached his knees. At least he'd had half a mind to wear his distinctive red boots and yellow backpack (which was looking rather full), and his mostly-black respirator was hanging around his collar.
"Ichigo!" Izuku's eyes betrayed his worry and concern, and he hastily made his approach, stopping directly in front of Ichigo. "What happened? Captain Kuchiki told us that Ruby and her team went missing this morning!"
As unwise as it might've been for him to turn his back to an Assassin, Ichigo did so anyway, turning away from Shaye to face Izuku fully. "The story is that Ruby and the rest of her team went with Shaye to get back two devices that were stolen by some criminal they'd had some encounters with already. Thing is, these devices are apparently able to teleport people off the face of Remnant. According to Shaye here, who had Squall use the devices in hopes that he'd end up in the same place the girls ended up in, Ruby and her teammates all ended up in a different world."
"And to make things more complicated, it seems Madoka isn't entirely able to reach the world they've ended up in," Shaye added, pushing the matte-black case back under her bed. She sounded much calmer than she'd been with Ichigo only a minute or two ago, the growl and bite seeming to have vanished from her tone. "You and your friends may as well take a seat for a bit while Ichigo explains what we know so far. I'll be looking for my equipment in the meantime."
Ah. So, she was leaving him to give Izuku and his two buddies the exposition dump for this situation.
…Yeah; as if she hadn't just put Ichigo up to that in order to get him off her back about whatever the hell was sitting inside that case of hers.
Still, Ichigo nodded and patted the floor between him and Izuku. "What she said. You can introduce us to those two you brought with you, and I'll give you the details of the situation. Sound good?"
Izuku looked vaguely conflicted as he glanced between Ichigo and Shaye, but nodded anyway. He took a seat on the floor, in front of Ichigo, and hugged his legs close to his chest. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he looked over his shoulder, to the two guys he'd brought with him. "I know this might be a lot to take in, but if both of you still want to stay and see this situation through with me, then I'd really appreciate it, to say the least."
The blond's eyes twitched, and he grimaced, gritting his teeth as he averted his eyes, turning his head away a bit. "Whatever. Only thing I'd like to know right now is who exactly he is." His voice sounded pretty rough and gruff, as if he seemed to have somewhat of a perpetually sore throat. He planted his hand on his hip and made it a point to aim a forefinger directly at Ichigo.
A quiet, relieved huff escaped Izuku's nose as he offered a small smile at the blond. "Right. Uh, Todoroki?" His eyes flicked to the guy with the half-red-half-white hair. "What about you?"
The half-and-half dude, 'Todoroki' most likely being his surname given the fact Izuku usually referred to people by their last names unless he was told to do otherwise (like with Ruby, as well as Ichigo himself), merely blinked at Izuku, as if he was surprised Izuku had asked about his thoughts on the situation. "I don't mind," he said as if he didn't know what else to say. "I'll stay. Can you introduce us to your friend, though?"
"Sure!" Izuku gave Todoroki one of his signature smiles, wide, kind and bright, before holding an open, bare hand out in front of Ichigo. "Well, for starters, this here is Ichigo Kurosaki. He's a Substitute Soul Reaper."
"That means I'm a Human who was given the powers of the Soul Reaper." Ichigo threw his hand up, offering a half-assed wave. With that same hand, he gestured to Shaye, holding his open hand out in her direction. "And this is Shaye..." he trailed off as he turned his head to look at her, only now realising he... didn't know her last name. "Uh, what was your last name again?"
Shaye blinked at him, apparently unbothered by it. "My official surname is Shadiolus."
'Official' surname? Did that mean she had another surname? Like a separate alias for her Assassin work, or something?
Ichigo turned back to Izuku and his two friends. "Her name's Shaye Shadiolus. And she's decided to pack almost her entire arsenal just to prepare for what we might encounter in the world that Team RWBY and Squall ended up in."
"Oh, we've already met Shadiolus before," Todoroki told him. "We met her and Squall in a world that revolved around ninjas that came from different villages."
"Also, you make it sound so grandiose, like I have an entire walk-in closet full of weapons," Shaye added, tone sounding a tad more peeved now. She looked at Izuku and the two others. "Ignore Ichigo – surely you've seen that I don't have that much equipment. If I did have a lot, I'd have to prioritise, or I'd have Star here with me instead so she can carry them in that weird pocket-dimension inventory she and the other Warriors of Cosmos have as part of their subconscious.
"Also, speaking of those bastard Warriors," Shaye added, before turning her head in the direction of the room's door, which stood closed. "Instead of standing around out there, how about you three come in and tell me what you want? The door's open!" she called, her voice a little louder than usual.
Ichigo couldn't remember if he'd ever heard her raise her voice before. It made her sound less intimidating, especially in comparison to her threatening him or anyone else in a low, dark tone, but then again, he'd always considered Shaye to be the type who often did have to at least try in order to even come off as threatening at all.
The door opened into the room, revealing three more people he didn't recognise.
The first one, holding the door handle, looked to be a young man with an awkward look on his face and a head of black hair set in somewhat-loose spikes. His clothes looked to be entirely jet-black at first glance, though Ichigo soon took note of the slim, barely-noticeable, purple soles of his combat boots. A ring sat around the base of the middle finger of his bare right hand, his other hand mostly-covered in a fingerless, black, leather gauntlet glove reaching halfway up his forearm and being kept further in place by the black strap of what looked like a watch but with a square, touchscreen face. The ring he wore had what looked like a small, rounded, cyan gem embedded in the top of it.
Standing behind the guy, he noticed two girls, both the same height. One bore a head of pink hair that reached just past one shoulder, while the other happened to be a brunette with medium-length hair and a full fringe that just-about reached her eyes, her irises an orchid-pink. The one with pink hair glared in Ichigo's direction, but seemed to be looking past him and at Shaye – so, whatever had pissed this woman off, Shaye probably had something to do with it.
On the other hand, the brunette's expression looked open, and fairly soft, but also expectant. She gingerly rounded the guy still standing at the door, and gave Shaye a soft, small smile.
"Change of plans. Pyrrha and I would like to go with you. She's sorting a few things out with Ruciana right now, and then she's gonna pack a few supplies."
Shaye blinked, tilting her head at the brunette. "You don't have anything to bring?"
"Aside from these guys," with a quirk of her thumb, she gestured to the pink-haired woman and the guy clad almost in all-black, "and maybe whatever equipment you have that's too big for whatever you're gonna be carrying it all in... no, not really."
Whatever equipment she has that's too big to be carried in that backpack? Ichigo's eyes flicked to one side as he shot a glance over his shoulder, at the space beneath Shaye's bed, where she'd pushed that case with the mysterious weapon in it.
"Oh," Shaye sounded genuinely surprised. "I see." She nodded at the brunette, before looking towards the pink-haired woman and the guy still holding the door open. "What else are you two here for, then?"
The pink-haired woman folded her arms. "You said you would update us on the situation once Squall managed to contact you. Only, you haven't done that yet. So, we came to get some answers."
"There's not much to say," was Shaye's first response. She shrugged her shoulders. "He managed to contact me via his own Scroll, though neither of us knew how he was able to do so. Still, Squall said that he and Team RWBY had ended up in some city called Trost, which was surrounded by a wall fifty metres high. And, at the time of his call, this same city of Trost had been invaded by giant monsters called Titans, and that it was in the process of being handled by Team RWBY, along with soldiers from the military that apparently occupies the land they ended up in."
Izuku gave Ichigo a wide-eyed look, his face betraying his shock, but Ichigo simply responded with a gentle shrug of his shoulders and told him: "I know what you're gonna say. I'm worried too. But still, let's just have faith that they actually have a good handle on their situation. Ruby, Weiss, and Blake are trained to fight monsters and have been training for years. They have a lot more experience on the battlefield than the two of us, that's for sure. Same with Squall."
"Indeed," Byakuya piped up, stepping over to stand a few feet from Izuku's right. His face looked as stoic as usual as he looked down at Izuku. "While the two of you are quite powerful, you are both still novices when it comes to battle – at least, in regards to the amount of experience you both have on the field. Those three have a lot more experience than either of you put together. Not to mention, there is also a fourth member of their team, who we still have yet to meet. And, Squall Leonhart is there, too."
The guy by the door chimed in as he glanced between Ichigo, Izuku, Todoroki, and Byakuya, tilting his head at Izuku. "Were you guys all with Ruby, Weiss, and Blake in Soul Society a while back?"
"Yep," Ichigo was the first to respond. He rested his elbows on his knees. "Well, three of us, anyway."
Izuku nodded. "Yeah. Ichigo, Captain Kuchiki, and me are currently the only ones here that Ruby, Weiss, and Blake would know from Soul Society. Captain Kuchiki and I just ended up bringing Kacchan and Todoroki here with us because they wanted to come with me."
So, since he knew the half-and-half guy with the scar on his eye was called Todoroki, that'd mean the ash-blond with the grenade gauntlets had to be Kacchan.
…The Kacchan.
Ichigo cocked his head at Izuku, a brow raised as an almost-incredulous expression took over his face. "Wait, so that guy is your 'amazing' best friend from childhood? This is the same guy you kept telling me and Ruby about?"
"HEY!" 'Kacchan' boisterously blurted as if on pure reflex alone.
The brunette, who the awkward dude by the door had called Star, swiftly appeared at Kacchan's side and immediately pressed a gentle hand over his mouth. "Please, not so loud! Your noise is gonna disturb the other people in this building! Do you want to bring us unnecessary attention?"
"I've said it before that he retorts like Weiss," Shaye piped up, tone and face deadpan as she and Ichigo shared a look.
"Oh—say," Star started, turning her head to face Izuku, "is Kacchan his real name? It sounds more like a nickname."
Kacchan none-so-gently slapped her hand away from his face, levelling a nasty glare at her from the side. "Get off of me! And my name is Katsuki Bakugo!" As Star's eyes flicked back to him, he shoved his face closer to hers, leaning into her personal space and prompting Star to lean back in response. Despite his apparent attempt to intimidate her, she regarded him with a look of mild surprise at most. He seemed to ignore her expression as he continued: "Who the hell are you, anyway?!"
Star blinked at him. "My name is Star Valkalily. I'm one of the Warriors of Cosmos." She threw a glance over her shoulder at the pink-haired woman. Then, raising her hand, she gestured, with a quirk of her thumb, at the woman, and turned back to face Bakugo. "Her name is Lightning. And he," Star aimed her thumb at the dude by the door, "is Prince Noctis."
"King Noctis," the guy, now identified as Noctis, corrected. As soon as everyone's attention snapped to him, he seemed to shrink into himself, his shoulders hunching. "It's King Noctis now. Noctis Lucis Caelum. My friends just call me Noct." He shrugged, almost dismissively, as if the fact he happened to be a King wasn't that big of a deal.
"In any case," the woman, Lightning, curtly cut in as she approached Ichigo and Shaye, stopping directly at Ichigo's right, "where are those devices?"
"Here." A cube-shaped shadow hung over Shaye's face.
Ichigo and Shaye both looked up to find Byakuya holding the container for the devices, one hand wrapped around the handle attached to the lid. Stone-faced, he held the container out to Lightning, his arm outstretched in a rather half-assed manner.
"Take Ichigo Kurosaki and Izuku Midoriya with you. By now, Rukia, Captain Hitsugaya, and Lieutenant Hinamori should have arrived in that world through the use of a Senkaimon, and given their skills, they should be well on their way to locating each of your friends. Ichigo Kurosaki should be able to identify the three of them."
"Right," Lightning replied, tone betraying her sense of caution and wariness, as she (gingerly) took the container from Byakuya. Her hand wrapped around the handle atop the container and she pulled it towards her. Her eyes then trailed downward, landing on Ichigo and Izuku. "So, I'm guessing that's you two, right?"
Weiss Schnee
So, it turned out Weiss had not only been right, but had worried for what now seemed to have been nothing.
Mikasa moved with surprising agility, even while she was carrying Blake in her arms.
Weiss didn't yet know what or how much Spring had taught Mikasa, but with how well Mikasa was adapting to using her Aura for mobility, Weiss figured either Spring happened to be a good mentor, or Mikasa had to be some kind of natural genius. After all, Mikasa was moving like she'd known or had been using her Aura all her life, to the point where it may as well be second nature.
Weiss' eyes flicked to her right, where Armin was sprinting alongside her. "Hey, Armin. How long have you and Mikasa known Spring?"
"Huh?" Armin blinked. His eyes darted to his left, meeting Weiss' gaze. "Well, we haven't known her all that long. We would occasionally see her around Shiganshina, mostly in the year before Wall Maria fell, but we only got to properly meet her when we first entered the Cadet Corps three years ago. Apparently she'd spent the two years after The Fall with Ymir. By the way, considering she's two years older than Spring and would've already been old enough to enlist by the time Wall Maria fell, a lot of us have wondered whether Ymir only joined the Cadets because of Spring."
With what I've seen of Ymir so far, I wouldn't be surprised. Still, I shouldn't get distracted. "Did you or Eren know Spring was training Mikasa to use Aura? Considering the look on your face earlier, and the look you had back at HQ, when Blake gave Mikasa that pair of swords that Spring made for her, I'm starting to doubt you or Eren were ever even aware of Mikasa having an Aura."
Armin's brows jolted, ever-so-slightly, higher up his forehead, almost hidden by his blond hair. Then, he pressed his lips together, and as his expression became near-neutral, he turned his head away from Weiss and faced forward, his eyes trailing after Mikasa's form.
Weiss followed his gaze, watching Mikasa bounce, from one foot, off the brick sidewall of a chimney a few buildings ahead of them. As Mikasa sprang forth, and rather high into the air, she propped Blake up on her left shoulder, with Blake's head, arms, and chest nearly leaning over Mikasa's left shoulder-blade, nearly making contact with the gun-hilt of the lower sword crossed over Mikasa's back. With her right hand now free and empty, Mikasa then used it to grab the other sword on her back and pull it off the back of her jacket, apparently mindful not to let the blade touch Blake in the process.
"You'd be right about that," Armin eventually answered, prompting Weiss to throw a side-glance at him. "Eren and me, we never knew about Mikasa having an Aura. Hell, we never even knew about the concept of Aura, or that it was even a thing. I don't think Mikasa even knew – not before the Cadet Corps, at least."
"That makes sense. I wasn't expecting Aura to be something that people were even aware of in this world," Weiss admitted, hopping from the edge of the shorter end of the rooftop, somersaulting onto the next one. Springing from an underfoot glyph, she continued her run across the rooftop's canopy, her pace a bit slower while she waited for Armin to catch up. Once he made it back to her side, she returned to her previous, quicker, pace, and spoke again: "If you guys were aware of Aura and all the powers and abilities you could develop with it, then there's a good chance you and the other Cadets would be more confident about taking on the Titans."
"Maybe," Armin mused. She threw another glance at him, only to find the ghost of a smile briefly, ever-so-briefly, gracing his lips. That expression soon faded from his face, almost as fast as it'd shown up, and was swiftly replaced by a look of mild curiosity as he glance sidelong at Weiss. "Still, if this Aura, this 'Power of Potential', is available to every living person, since every living being has a soul, then how is Mikasa the only one of us, that we know is from this world, who has access to it and is able to use it?"
Ah. I must've missed the chance to explain how the power of Aura is accessed when I explained the concept of it back at HQ. "Well, since it's assumed Mikasa already possessed an Aura by the time she joined the Cadet Corps, and that Spring only helped her to develop and use it as we do on Remnant, then I'd say that Mikasa likely awakened the power of her Aura on her own at some point."
"If that's the case, then it must've been before I met her. Eren's family adopted her in the year before the Fall of Wall Maria, and Eren introduced us to each other only a few days after his family took her in, but at least by the time I met her, she already seemed to possess some sort of power or strength – physical strength, I mean – that I'd never been able to explain or determine the source of. I mean, she was the same size as us, and yet she could throw Eren and the other kids in town around without breaking a sweat, as if throwing around the entire weight of one kid, sometimes even more than one, required little to no effort on her part. It could make her come off as scary at times, but it was always incredible to watch her pull off feats that kids our age wouldn't have normally been capable of pulling off; or even exhibit the kind of incredible strength that we thought only the most physically capable of soldiers would've possessed."
Ahead of them, the Rogue Titan – who'd saved Mikasa and Blake earlier, according to Mikasa herself – was slamming punch after punch into the head of another Titan who almost stood tall enough to reach the Rogue's same height of fifteen metres. The mindless Titan's head and neck appeared to be getting crushed against the tiles of a rooftop's canopy, the specific rooftop sitting only a few buildings ahead of Mikasa, along the row of buildings at Mikasa's left-hand side.
The body of the mindless Titan fell limply against the wall of the building. Its head, now smashed into the rooftop's canopy, tore from the rest of the Titan's body, with its neck apparently having been severed by the Rogue's use of an incredible amount of blunt force. The Titan's now-headless body collapsed, sliding down the building before landing hard on its knees, the Rogue reflexively stepping back from his work as the headless, limp body hit the ground. The Titan's headless body started to tilt forward then, and the Rogue stepped farther back, letting the body simply hit the ground, landing on its front.
The Rogue's fists unclenched, smoothly flinging open; and as his fingertips flicked outward, he raised his leg, his bare, large, tan foot briefly hovering over the back of the headless Titan's neck, before he slammed his foot down and crushed its weak-spot.
"He just finished it off!" Armin sounded almost breathless with awe, blinking as his eyes widened. "Just like Athena! He knows exactly where the weak-spot is!"
"And he took out that weak-spot through using only basic hand-to-hand combat and blunt force," Weiss pointed out. "From what I've seen of Athena so far, it doesn't seem like she would possess enough strength to sever some part of a Titan's body with only her fists and the raw power that must come from being a Titan. So, what we're seeing of this Rogue Titan must mean he's more physically capable than Athena, which isn't too much of a surprise, since the Rogue's a tad bigger than Athena in terms of size and build. That said, how he went completely unnoticed by us until he saved Mikasa and Blake is beyond me, especially given he doesn't appear to be making any attempts to hide his strength."
"Yeah. Besides, something tells me he's fighting on instinct," Armin told her. "I mean, Mikasa said that he's heading to HQ because that's where he plans on reuniting with Ruby, but why spend time taking out every last Titan on the way there unless something is compelling him to do so? If he's not just fighting each and every Titan because he feels he has to, because that's what his instincts are telling him to do, then why wouldn't he just make a run for it and simply barge through any that tried to get in his way until he got there?"
"Good point. There has to be something driving his desire to take out every Titan he comes across. You don't just rebel against your own kind without there being any solid reason as to why. There has to be something more to why Athena and the Rogue have rebelled against the other Titans, and why those two are the only ones we know of so far who've done so."
Armin turned his head to look at her then. The corners of his lips were curled up in a small and hesitant, but bright, smile. "Well, we can always ask Athena about her reasons when we get to HQ—!"
A Titan's hand swung into view, snatching Armin up in the blink of an eye.
Armin's screams – hysterical and loud and guttural – instantly followed, but at least that meant he hadn't died on impact, because holy shit that hand had come out of nowhere and at such a terrifying fucking speed—
"ARMIN!" she couldn't help but screech, her eyes blown wide. She swivelled to face the monster—wait, no, two monsters at her right.
The one holding Armin looked to be a rather emaciated thing, not much bigger than five metres. It stood in a crouching position atop the canopy, its legs bent and its knees drawn up to its chest, while it otherwise propped itself up on the knuckles of its empty fist.
The other Titan looked twice the size of the first one, its upper body looming over the entire form of the smaller Titan and covering the smaller one in a large shadow. Probably a full ten metres in height, the other Titan also appeared to have propped itself up in a kneeling position, its slim, bony, open hands hovering above the tiles, at either side of the smaller Titan.
Which one do I go for first? With the ten-metre hovering behind it, it doesn't look like I'll be able to kill the one that's got Armin, since it looks like it's blocking off any easy access to that five-metre's weak-spot. And if I go for the ten-metre Titan first, the five-metre might just kill Armin while I'm trying to get to it. Still, if Mikasa and the Rogue heard his screams, then perhaps I can delay both Titans long enough for them to get here and finish them off.
Drawing her empty right hand up to her opposite shoulder, she flexed her index and middle fingers and balled the rest of her hand into a fist. The ice-blue of her Aura sparkled at both fingertips. With a sharp flick of her wrist, she fired a sharp, ice-blue bolt of energy, shaped almost like a spear, from her fingertips. The spear-shaped bolt made a beeline for the five-metre, which had raised Armin above its head and was holding him above its open mouth.
Sharply swinging her arm forward, her fist flung open. The bolt split into a dozen smaller bolts. They flew all around the smaller Titan, threading through the space in-between the back of the five-metre and the front of the ten-metre, arranging themselves in a circle as they surrounded the smaller Titan.
"Support Style, Basic Capture Art Six," Weiss called, yanking her open hand back towards herself. "Dozen Strikes of Imprisonment!"
Each of the dozen bolts launched at the five-metre, slamming themselves one by one into its midriff.
In an instant, the Titan ceased to move, the spell freezing it in place, and Armin with it. His feet stopped kicking, and instead hung, suspended, a bit above the Titan's wide, open mouth.
Too close. I got lucky this time. If this were to ever happen again, I'd need to act faster.
The ten-metre raised its hand, pulling its arm up and back until its elbow looked to be almost level with its shoulder.
Weiss tightened her hold on Myrtenaster's grip. A glyph spun to life under her feet.
The ten-metre swung its arm down, its hand open and quick.
She sprang from her glyph. As she flew a bit towards her right-hand side, the Titan's hand crashed into the tiles. She continued to ascend high into the air, performing a mid-air twirl, before landing on another glyph, set upright and suspended in thin air. Balling her free hand into a fist, she drew it towards her shoulder, and activated the Burn Dust in the bracelet laid around her wrist. Flames spilled out from the back of her fist, erupting from the Schnee family emblem that'd been embroidered into the fabric of these hand coverings she wore, the emblem now glowing red with the power of the Burn Dust, while a ball of flames swirled around her fist.
The ten-metre was starting to raise its other hand.
She made a wide flick of her arm from the elbow down, casting the fireball at the face of the ten-metre.
The fireball swiftly landed, causing an explosion to rip across the Titan's entire face, everything from its hairline to its chin to either ear being engulfed in a blast of fire and smoke and concussive force. Its charred, skinless mouth dropped open, and it tilted its head back a little, bringing its hands almost up to its face.
Then, from deep within its throat, it let out a haunting noise – something between a roar, a whine, and a cry of agony.
It almost sent chills up and down Weiss' spine. Almost.
She managed to collect herself and spring from her glyph again. Following a somersault, she landed on a horizontally-set glyph, which hovered low, a little in front of both Titans, but a bit above the five-metre. She twirled in place atop the glyph's centre, activating the Ice Dust within Myrtenaster's Dust chamber. Upon finishing her spin, she crossed one foot in front of the other, and summoned a large glyph under the ten-metre's legs.
"Elemental Support Style, Cold Capture Art One," she called out, flexing her free hand and stretching her arms out as she sharply raised Myrtenaster, aiming its tip at the sky. "Single Pillar Entrapment!"
A cylindrical whirlwind of icy-blue energy sprouted up from the rings around the glyph, forming a tall, bright, cold tower which encased the Titan's head, torso, and its thighs and upper arms, capping itself off at its elbows and knees, as well as just above the Titan's head. The translucent, rounded wall of energy then glowed, only for it to burst into a cascade of icy-blue glitter-like sparkles and shards, revealing a large, broad pillar made entirely of ice. The Titan's head and torso, both caught in the ice, were left barely visible through the frozen, rounded wall of the pillar.
Then, bending her knees, Weiss sprang from the glyph on which she was standing. She performed a twirl as she flew down over the head of the paralysed five-metre, activating the Burn Dust from Myrtenaster and sliding her index and middle fingers down the blade, a continuous flame and the light spilling of a few embers following the tips of both fingers. She landed on a glyph behind the top of the Titan's head.
With a flick of her wrist, five smaller, red glyphs spun to life across the Titan's face, each glyph the size of her own head. She then flicked both fingers upward, aiming her fingertips at the sky.
With its head being so far back, I can't get to the weak-spot to cut into it. I'll just have to free Armin.
All five glyphs lit up in a fiery glow before detonating one by one. One explosion ripped through the Titan's forehead. Two more blasts tore open either cheek, followed by the last two explosions blasting apart its open mouth.
But I can't just cut him free. Considering the position this Titan is keeping him in, if I were to just blindly cut off the hand or arm to save him, then he could easily fall down the Titan's throat instead.
Smoke billowed up from each of the blast sites. She could hear Armin coughing and spluttering as thick, ash-grey clouds enveloped his form.
She aimed her right index and middle fingers at Armin. "This might hurt, so, sorry in advance!" A small, round wave of light-blue energy flashed around the tips of her fingers. "Support Style, Advanced Offence Art One: Kinetic Burst!"
An almost-colourless burst of translucent light-blue energy shot forth from her fingertips, slamming mostly into Armin and mostly into the giant, slim fingers wrapped around his frame. The Titan's hand alone was swiftly knocked backward, its fingers flinging open suddenly, perhaps due to reflex or even instinct. The quick flick of the Titan's wrist seemed to produce a slight click (or was it a crack?).
Armin soon began to slip out of the Titan's open grasp.
Success!
Weiss flash-stepped from her glyph, shooting towards Armin and catching him in her arms as she darted past the Titan and its hand.
With Armin propped up on her right shoulder, her right hand holding him up, she landed in a crouching position on the tiles again, her back facing the two Titans.
"Armin!"
"Weiss!"
Letting slip a heavy, shaky breath, Weiss rose to her feet and straightened her stance. She turned to face Mikasa and a now-conscious-and-active Blake, as both girls came sprinting toward her, followed closely by the Rogue Titan.
Mikasa reached Weiss' side first, still holding one of the swords Spring had made for her, though with her other hand now empty. Upon stopping beside Weiss, Mikasa raised her empty hand, gently placing it on the small of Armin's back, close to his side.
Armin winced, his form tensing as he let slip a noise that sounded like a hiss, as if he'd drawn a breath in through his teeth.
Mikasa blinked, her eyes widening, and pulled her hand back. "You're hurt," she breathed out. She stepped toward Weiss' front. "I'm not sure yet how badly he's been hurt, but if you're going to carry him, then you might want to avoid direct combat in order to avoid aggravating his injuries too much." Mikasa then blinked, again, her eyes growing wider still, as her eyebrows rose and her lips fell slightly apart, letting slip a gasp, however quiet. "What's wrong? You're trembling."
It took Weiss a second to really realise what Mikasa was talking about – why she was so surprised, and... and was that concern in her eyes?
Weiss was practically shaking in her boots; literally. So was Armin, too, more so than Weiss, and for at least two different reasons, and Weiss also hadn't realised that until now, either. Her grip on Myrtenaster had tightened to a point where she could just-about feel her nails digging into the heel of her palm through the glove. If not for her Guard and the glove, her hand probably would've started to bleed from her skin rubbing so hard against Myrtenaster's grip.
And yet, despite her hold on it, Myrtenaster trembled in Weiss' hand, with Weiss' hand. And with her other hand, pressed against the small of Armin's back. And even along with both of her legs. Her trembling was slight, so slight Weiss hardly even registered it (or the way her heart seemed to be racing, for that matter), even while her hands – and, by extension, Myrtenaster – were quivering quite rapidly.
I need to calm down. Maybe some deep breaths would help? Weiss closed her eyes, before breathing in through her nose. She paused. Then, she exhaled through her mouth. She consciously loosened her grip, slightly, on Myrtenaster. Relax. Breathe in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight. Repeat.
After repeating this breathing exercise a few times, she began to feel a bit less tense and quite a bit less on edge. Her hands grew steadier as she stopped trembling.
"Uh, Weiss?" Blake sounded unnerved, and plenty nervous. Weiss opened her eyes to find Blake standing beside her, at her right, and staring with widened eyes in the direction of the two Titans behind Weiss. "Maybe you should've used a different method to stop the big one."
She caught the sounds of ice cracking. Then, what sounded like water droplets hitting the tiles.
Mikasa lifted her head and looked past Weiss, towards the ten-metre that Weiss had frozen a moment ago. Weiss followed Mikasa's gaze as she turned halfway, facing the ten-metre sidelong.
The ice was beginning to melt from the Titan's body emitting such an intense amount of heat, steam rising from the holes in the ice around the ten-metre's shoulders and legs. Its arms were moving wildly, waving themselves around, before one of its hands slapped hard against where the ice was covering its face.
"You think there's a way to get through the ice to kill it?" Armin asked, voice a bit strained.
"Probably, but it'd take someone with Yang's level of raw power to break through only as much of the ice as we need to break in order to even get a clean shot," Weiss answered.
"BANKAI!"
An icy gust barrelled into the four of them, originating somewhere high in the air, behind Mikasa. The gust was all-too-quickly followed by the familiar form of Tōshirō literally flying past them, making a beeline for the frozen Titan, his Zanpakutō, Hyōrinmaru, drawn and gripped in the ice shaped to form a dragon's head that covered his hand. More ice covered his other hand, the ice shaped to form a slightly-bigger, more claw-like hand, while a set of ice wings extended out from his back.
"Tōshirō?!" Since when was he here?!
He released somewhat of a battle-cry as he pulled his sword hand back, before jabbing the sword forward and stabbing the blade into the ice pillar.
In the blink of an eye, large cracks opened up all along and all around the pillar. Another wave of cracks then opened up all across the pillar, making up the spaces in-between each one of the large cracks. The pillar briefly seemed to glint or shine, only to shatter into a waterfall of small shards of ice, most of the shards each holding a smaller piece of the ten-metre as they poured onto the rooftop, crashing into the tiles.
The ten-metre's arms, plus what was left of its legs, collapsed with the shards, dropping onto the tiles as well.
"I'd be surprised if that Titan can regenerate after that," Blake commented with raised brows, her tone almost sounding deadpan.
Tōshirō turned away from what remained of the ten-metre, his turquoise eyes quick to land on Weiss first. "It's not just 'Tōshirō', remember?" With a steady, stiff flap of his inflexible ice wings, he glided toward the group of four, only to stop in front of Weiss and lower himself down to stand on the tiles. "It's Captain Hitsugaya. Don't you remember me telling you that?" He had to raise his head quite a bit to even meet her eyes, given he only stood at about 4'4".
"I remember, I remember," Weiss assured him, unable to keep the soft smile from her face. "You just surprised me, that's all. I wasn't expecting you to follow us here, and I didn't even sense you approaching, either."
Blake crossed her arms under her chest. "If you're here and were concealing your spiritual pressure, then who else is with you?"
Tōshirō looked at Blake. "They're not with me currently, but I came here with Momo, as well as Rukia Kuchiki. I was able to sense you and Weiss were close together, so I told them I'd go and find you. Apparently, they could also sense Squall near two girls that none of us were not familiar with. And when we sensed Ruby, we found her close to the Aura signature of another person we didn't recognise."
"Someone else?" Weiss and Blake blinked simultaneously.
"So far, the only people to arrive from Remnant today are Team RWBY and Squall," Armin told him, sounding fairly puzzled. "And aside from Mikasa here, the only two other people I can think of who have Auras would be Yang and Spring, and they should have arrived at HQ and met up with Squall by now."
"I see," Tōshirō replied, sparing a look at Armin. "In any case, Momo and Rukia should be able to give us some answers soon about who's keeping Ruby company. For now, though, it seemed like you were on your way somewhere."
"Right." Weiss gave him a firm nod of her head. "We need to get to HQ, since that's where the Cadets are supposed to get resupplied. I take it you'll come with us?"
"You already know my answer to that. Let's get going."
Jean Kirschtein
"Give it everything you've got!"
Putting some weight on one foot, Jean pushed off the edge of another rooftop, leaping high into the air. Ruby quickly followed him, springing off the tiles.
They'd made it to the second ring of buildings that surrounded HQ, as far as he could tell. They only had to pass the next few buildings standing in front of them, each building reaching a taller height than the last. The buildings also stood a fair bit apart, leaving more than enough room for a number of smaller Titans to wander about the street below him.
Worse still, the sounds of one or two Titans were approaching, their hard, heavy, rapid footfalls causing the surrounding area to quake with each step.
With a burst of his gas, he propelled himself forward, up high between the first two buildings.
"Jean! Titan to your right!"
Ruby's shout came just as he noticed a Titan in his peripheral. The bastard looked to be around 13 metres or so.
Its hand shot out towards Jean, and before he could react, its fingers wrapped around his leg.
"Hadō Thirty-Two: Ōkasen!"
Who the hell—?
A wide, flat, horizontal beam of crackling yellow energy sliced through the whole of the Titan's wrist, severing the Titan's hand from its arm. The hand opened upon its separation from the wrist, before slipping off of Jean's leg. Then, it fell away from Jean.
Then, from his other peripheral, he caught Ruby springing from the eaves of the rooftop near his left. She shot towards him, and in the blink of an eye, had snaked an arm around his midriff and brought him over to the rooftop that'd been up ahead, towards his right-hand side.
His feet hit the tiles covering the canopy, followed closely by Ruby's boots landing at his left. She swiftly released her hold on him, and as he regained his balance and recovered a steady stance, her head turned from one side to the other, from HQ to the Titan which now stood not too far behind them.
"Jean!" Marco landed at Jean's right. "You okay? What the hell was that?"
"Hell if I know." Jean shrugged. He turned toward Ruby. "You know who did that?"
Ruby looked up at him and opened her mouth to speak.
"Ruby!"
Following the call, which seemed to come from the same disembodied voice he heard just a moment ago, he heard what sounded like a rather thick flap of fabric. And then a girl, with short, jet-black hair and a silver-bladed sword in her hand, landed almost in a crouching position in front of the three of them. When the girl lifted her head and rose to stand, he did a double-take.
She looked a lot like Mikasa. The only visible difference seemed to be that she happened to be rather short (quite a bit shorter than even Ruby), that her irises looked more purple in comparison to Mikasa's, and that the ends of her hair bore loose, spike-like strands which curved outward as they surrounded her shoulders.
But other than those characteristics, she may as well have been Mikasa's lookalike.
"Rukia!" Ruby's face brightened as she approached the girl, now identified as Rukia. "What are you doing here?"
"Madoka told us that you were transported off the face of Remnant because of some device. So, we had Captain Kurotsuchi track you guys down. When we found you here in this world, Captain Hitsugaya, Lieutenant Hinamori, and I, all came here to find and help you guys. I'd expect Ichigo and my brother will also show up at some point, too."
"The more the merrier! Glad you came to help us out," Ruby told her, giving a nod of her head. "Gods know we need it at this point. Isn't that right, guys?" she turned to look at Jean and Marco.
"Oh!" Marco offered a smile and scratched the side of his head. "Yeah, that's right! Sorry, you just look a lot like a friend of ours."
"Ah," Rukia said, her tone one of understanding. She gave Marco and Jean a small smile. "That explains the staring, then. Still, we should get moving. Your comrades are almost to that tower up ahead, which is where it looked like you were heading." With her empty hand, she gripped the dull-crimson sheath hanging from her waist and gestured with her sword towards HQ.
"Right, yeah! HQ!" Jean shook himself out of his stupor and took off, charging past the group. "Come on guys!"
Three sets of footfalls took off after him, with one set sounding lighter than the other two as they padded across the tiles.
The ground began quaking again, causing every building in the area to start rumbling once more – and even more violently than before, it seemed.
Just as his balance on the tiles started becoming unsteady, Jean reached the edge of the rooftop, and with a burst of his gas, propelled himself onto the rooftop of the last building, standing as part of the first ring of buildings that surrounded HQ.
His boots had barely touched the canopy when Athena launched into view, starting ahead of Jean, towards his right, and stumbling back some steps until she stopped more towards his left, still in front of the building on which he was standing. Athena's hands were raised and curled into fists.
She was beginning to look pretty haggard. However, she also looked she had enough energy to fight now, and he figured that in itself had to be some sort of blessing.
She seemed to notice Jean, as her eyes flicked towards him, widened as if his appearance had surprised her. Then, she offered him a small smile, and gestured to the tower with a slight jerk of her head. But before he could respond, her eyes flicked back to whatever Titan must be trying to pick a fight with her, and she charged at it with strong, rapid steps that rumbled the ground around her. In just a few seconds, she'd disappeared back out of view again.
Was she trying to stay out of their way, maybe? Or trying to keep her fights away from the tower so they could get into HQ without incident?
Jean threw a glance over his shoulder at Marco, Ruby, and Rukia. "Looks like Athena's trying to keep our path clear! We don't know how long she'll last though, so we better hurry!"
"Right!" The three of them responded in unison.
His eyes darted back to the tower up ahead of him, and to the row of windows sitting rather high up the wall. A fair few of the windows had already been broken into, with Mina standing in the view of a broken window which sat in line with the ridge of the rooftop Jean had now began sprinting across again.
As soon as Mina saw them, she raised her hand high above her head and waved her arm. "Hey! Nice to see you guys again! The coast looks like it's clear, so come on up!"
"Sounds good to me!" Jean told her with a grin on his face.
He rapidly approached the edge of the rooftop and put weight on his foot, leaping off the edge and launching his wires upward. The anchors lodged themselves in the tower wall, not too far above Mina's window. He pulled the lower trigger on either of his controllers, and, with each forefinger, pressed down on the lever hanging over each pair of triggers. His wires pulled taut, and while the last of his gas streamed out of his emission and launched him upwards, his wires hauled him towards Mina's window.
Mina was quick to move behind the wall to her left.
Jean crossed his arms in front of his face to shield himself from the sharp shards of glass that still remained attached to the window's borders. Then, kicking one of his legs out in front of him, he retracted his wires and swung himself feet-first through the window.
His foot hit the floor and, having not prepared how he was going to land, he ended up rolling ungraciously on the floor of the room. That said, he quickly began to skid on his side before stopping next to some tables and desks that'd been set up as if to build or form some sort of barricade.
He rolled over to face the windows and lifted himself up just in time to see everyone that'd been with him fly through the rest of the windows, some of them having to crash through the glass before landing in the room.
They'd made it. But at what cost?
He didn't even know how many of them there'd been when they'd first taken off with Mikasa leading the way. Even if he did a headcount now, he still wouldn't be able to tell exactly how many of them had been killed on the way, especially once he'd had to take the lead in Mikasa's place.
The weight of it all came crashing down on him then, and he dropped his left sword on the ground
How... how many of us made it? He pressed his face against his palm, his eyes wide as they stared hard at the floor. How many bodies did I crawl over? How many of our comrades died on my orders?
"Hey. Horse-face."
Ymir's voice, her tone careless, originated beside him, at his right. The toe of her boot hit his sheath.
He let his hand fall by his side before looking up at her. "I hate it when you call me that."
"Eh, well, blame Eren. He was the one who pointed it out. Besides, it's not like he'll mind." Ymir shrugged, before planting her hands on her hips. "Anyway, try to stop looking so pathetic. From what I can see, not only did you manage to get a whole lot of our comrades here in one piece, but you also found Yang's sister and a Mikasa look-alike in the process. Call that a job well done and get off your ass, because according to the plan, we're still only halfway through this bullshit."
"Great..." Jean sighed under his breath, tone dripping with sarcasm. He picked his sword back up off the floor before slipping both of them back into either sheath and rising to his feet. He turned his head toward Ymir. "Where is Yang, anyway?"
"She's on the roof playing watchtower with Squall and Spring."
Squall Leonhart
"Are you sure that was Ruby?"
Squall turned his head to face Yang, who stood at his left, and levelled her with a deadpan stare. "You think I wouldn't recognise her at this distance? Besides, at least compared to the rest of those Cadets, she's the most colourful of the bunch."
They were standing just behind the half-wall ledge, looking over where the group of Cadets were flying towards and hauling themselves into the windows of the tower. With them were Ruby and—wait, was that Rukia Kuchiki, the Soul Reaper they'd saved from being executed?
"Huh?" Yang blinked, only to narrow her eyes at Rukia's form. "That girl is wearing a Soul Reaper uniform, right?"
"She is. She's a Soul Reaper called Rukia Kuchiki. When Ruby, Weiss, and Blake were sent to Soul Society, their mission was to save her from being executed. Shaye, Terra, and I all helped them do that."
"Kuchiki, huh? Like Byakuya Kuchiki?"
"Yep. She's pretty much Byakuya's little sister."
Yang shot a puzzled glance at him, a brow raised. "What, like she's not actually his little sister?"
"Not by blood, as far as I know. Byakuya adopted her into the family as his sister."
"Huh," Yang said, before resting her forearms on the ledge and leaning her head over the edge. She blinked. Then, she blinked again, and her brows furrowed. "Wait, hold on. I left Weiss and Blake with Jean's group, and Mikasa was supposed to have joined up with the group at some point. But the last few Cadets are making it into the tower now and I still haven't seen either Weiss, Blake, or Mikasa with the group at any point. I didn't see Armin with them, either."
A faint static sensation combined with some slight pressure started to weigh down on him. It felt similar to the weird combination of gravitational and vaguely electric sensations he'd felt when that device he'd used to get here had activated in his palm, just seconds before it'd enveloped him in that white light that'd left him perhaps just a bit disoriented when he'd landed in this world.
"Since Ruby and your friend Rukia were with the group, those four should still be with the Cadets as well. But why? Did something happen on the way?"
Spring, who was sat in a kneeling position at his right, her forearms and chin resting on the ledge, looked up at him from the corners of her eyes. She glanced at Yang before her eyes flicked back to Squall.
Squall ignored her like he was tempted to ignore the portal he could tell was growing behind him. With an unimpressed look on his face, he turned a bit more towards Yang. "You have your Scrolls, don't you? Just call Blake and ask why she and the others aren't with the group."
From his peripheral, he caught Spring turning her head to look over her shoulder.
A cyan ray of light shone in Spring's face, prompting her to hold her hand up to cover her eyes. The ray then began to move towards Squall, while a scarlet ray shone past him and Yang. The cyan ray passed over Squall's back and then Yang's, as the red ray swung upward and towards the sky, crossing over with a yellow ray of light that was moving downward, towards the ground.
"Are you guys expecting anyone?" Spring asked, looking up at Squall again.
"Only Shaye," Squall told her, "unless there's been a change of plans."
Yang lifted her right arm and planted her hand flat on the ledge, pushing herself into an upright standing position, before pivoting to look sidelong at the portal. "Well, if it is her like she said it'd be, then better late than never, I guess."
She does have a point. With Shaye here, not only do our chances look better, but she probably has a big enough volume of Aura to build something that could plug the hole in the wall that the Titans are using to get in. Squall closed his eyes and crossed his arms. After breathing a sigh through his nose, he also pivoted and stood sidelong to face the portal.
Lightning and Noctis dropped out of the portal first. Almost immediately, they were followed by Ichigo (Shit...), then Izuku (Double shit...), and then two other boys – the first of them being that jackass Katsuki Bakugo, and the second one being Shoto Todoroki, the much more bearable one of the two.
"You're not Shaye," Squall and Yang ended up saying simultaneously.
Lightning's face brightened a bit as soon as she saw him and Yang, the look in her eyes seeming to become if only a bit lighter. "Guess not. Didn't think we'd find you guys so fast."
Noctis scratched the back of his head as he turned toward Ichigo and Izuku. "I just remembered, you guys wouldn't have met Yang yet, right?" With an open hand, he wordlessly gestured towards Yang.
Yang offered the boys a cheerful half-raised wave and coupled it with a smile. "Hey there! I'm Yang Xiao Long. And judging from the fact you're wearing a Soul Reaper uniform," she aimed her forefinger at Ichigo, "I'm guessing you must've met my little sister and our teammates when the three of them were sent to Soul Society."
"If you mean Ruby, Weiss and Blake, then you'd be right about that." Ichigo planted his hands on his hips, before cocking his head to one side and raising a brow. "By the way, which one of them is your sister? You don't really look like you could be related to any of them."
"Ruby is the one that's my little sister – she's two years younger than me, Weiss, and Blake." Yang also planted her hands on her hips. "Ruby and I tend to get that a lot, too – how we don't look like we'd be related. Even Blake and Weiss were a bit surprised at first when we told them we were sisters."
"Since we're introducing ourselves," Todoroki raised his hand, "who's the other girl next to you?" He half-heartedly pointed at Spring.
"Oh—I'm Spring." Spring planted her hands on the ledge and pushed herself to her feet. She clasped her hands together in front of her lap.
"That does look like something that would be a military uniform," Lightning said, if a bit quietly, as if she was muttering it more to herself than Spring. She folded her arms, and rested her weight on one leg. "That said, maybe it's just me, but you don't exactly look old enough to be a seasoned soldier. Are you a Cadet or of a similar rank?"
"Yeah, I am." Spring nodded. "Today was supposed to be my class' last day as Cadets, though, and tomorrow we were meant to be choosing which of three regiments we want to join."
"All of that's been up in the air ever since the Colossal Titan showed up and caused the other Titans to invade the city." Yang threw her hands behind her head, fingers intertwined, and rested the back of her head on her fingers and palms. "The other Cadets from Spring's class are in this here tower that we're standing on. That said, we've been mostly using the windows to get in and out, since the streets surrounding this place are occupied by Titans, Titans, and more Titans. Plus, the ground floor of this tower is crawling with some of the smaller ones that managed to make their way into the supply room.
"And that's pretty much the entire situation in a nutshell, except for the fact that we seem to be missing Weiss, Blake, and two other Cadets called Mikasa and Armin. For now, though, let's head inside. We can explain more in there."
Jean Kirschtein
"By the way," Ymir planted her hands on her hips as she looked at Jean from the corners of her eyes, "what happened to Weiss, Blake, and Armin? Far as I remember, they were still with the group when we left with Yang. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I find it hard to believe that you just suddenly got up off your ass and decided you actually had the balls to lead the rest of these jackasses all the way here without any intervention from the girls or Mikasa."
Jean folded his arms. "I hate to admit it, but you're not wrong. Mikasa showed up and gave us all a verbal kick up the ass before she took off, and we all decided then and there that we may as well follow her. She ran out of gas not too far out, and Blake tried to break her fall but ended up going down with her. Armin and Weiss went to help them, as you'd probably expect, and we haven't seen or heard from them since."
"And I'm guessing you ended up running into Ruby not long after?"
"Pretty much. And Rukia – the Mikasa lookalike – showed up not long after that, too. Just before we made it in here, actually. Only got to know her name because she and Ruby apparently know each other."
"Hey! Guys!" Mina called out, gentle but loud enough to carry across the entire room and effectively prompt everyone to quiet down. As Jean, Ymir, and everyone else turned to look at Mina, she poked her head out of the window he'd first found her standing at, and craned her neck to look upward, as if she was looking at something high up on the outside wall of the tower. "Looks like Yang, Squall, and Spring are coming back in. And they've got six others with them!"
Ruby and Rukia were quick to join Mina at the window. Both girls planted their hands flat on the windowsill and pushed themselves up off their feet, leaning out of the window only halfway.
"Wait, Ichigo and Izuku? Can't say I was expecting them to show up so soon," Rukia said. "I wonder if my brother sent them here ahead of himself."
Ruby's mouth dropped open as her eyes widened. Then, her lips stretched into a smile and she lifted a hand off the sill to widely wave her arm out at the group on the outside of the tower. "Hey guys!"
The first one of the group to make their entrance happened to be Spring, who swung herself, on both wires, through the open window to the right of Rukia, Ruby, and Mina. As Spring retracted her wires and skidded to a halt several feet away from the window, Yang dropped in front of the same window and swiftly fired a small, fiery burst from her gauntlets, aimed behind her. She shot through the window and landed a few feet behind Spring.
"Yang!" Ruby pushed herself away from the windowsill with a bright smile.
Yang's gauntlets closed into their bracelet forms as she looked over at Ruby. A soft sigh of relief slipped from Yang's lips before she approached Ruby with hurried and rapid steps and engulfed Ruby in a hug. With one hand on the centre of Ruby's back and her other hand holding the back of Ruby's head, she pushed Ruby's forehead onto her collar. "Where have you been?" she started, voice low and soft. "You seemed to just go radio silent after Blake called you about Eren's squad."
"Oh... right. I'm sorry. You guys must've been pretty worried." Ruby wrapped her arms around Yang's waist in response, returning the hug. "After Mikasa and I helped sort out the evacuation process, I just started wandering around Trost for a bit. Only decided I was gonna head for HQ after I ran into a woman from the Scouts. Been with her for the most part."
Just then, a young man clad pretty much in all-black suddenly appeared in the window behind Annie, and holding onto him was a woman with distinctive, somewhat-spiky pink hair. Little blue pieces of what looked like shards seemed to burst from their forms as they appeared, before scattering and fading in the wind; all while the young man hung by his hand from whatever he was holding above the window.
The pink-haired young woman planted her feet, her boots similar to the ones Ruby was wearing, on the windowsill. Immediately, she seemed to find her balance, and stood upright and with confidence in the open space where the window's glass should've been, all while releasing her hold on the young man. Then, she held her hand out toward him, as he placed his own two feet on the windowsill, too.
Just as he went to grab her hand, a guy with spiky orange hair and wearing the same uniform as Rukia, albeit with a large, wrapped-up sword on his back, flew down into the view of the window behind Reiner. In one of the guy's arms, he was carrying a boy with large, round, green eyes, green hair that reminded Jean of a bush, four freckles under each eye, and a large yellow backpack on his back. In the guy's other arm, he carried another boy, this one with hair that made Jean near-enough do a double take due to it being made up of white on one side and red on the other, the colours split down the middle. The same boy also bore what looked to be a burn scar on and around his left eye.
Then, hanging at the back of the floating orange-haired guy, Jean noticed a brunet dude with a thin scar between his eyes. His long-sleeved jet-black jacket appeared to be adorned with a fur collar. His hands, which were gripping the shoulders of the floating guy, were wrapped in jet-black gloves. His hairstyle looked perhaps a little similar to Ruby's.
"Is it just me, or does it look a bit crowded in there?" the green-haired boy asked.
It looked like Reiner hadn't noticed the group of four hovering behind him until the boy had spoken up, as he instantly pivoted to face the window, his face drawn into an expression of alarm. The moment he saw the group of four, his eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. Before he could even say anything, though, Christa quickly ran past his right-hand side and approached the window.
"Squall, have you seen Weiss or Blake out there?" Christa asked, as she looked up at the guy with the thin scar between his eyes. She appeared to be addressing him directly, and considering she'd called the guy 'Squall', it seemed he happened to be the Squall that all four members of Team RWBY had mentioned so far at one point or another. "It doesn't look like they came with the rest of the group."
"Unfortunately, I didn't see them heading here with Ruby's group, and neither did Yang," the guy told her, practically confirming with his response that he was the one called Squall. "Can we come in first, though? I don't like having to hold onto this knucklehead just because he can float."
"Hey!" The orange-haired dude shot a glare over his shoulder at Squall.
"Oh! Right, yeah. We'll give you all some space to land," Christa told them, a small smile on her face. Turning to face Reiner, she grabbed his arm with both hands and tugged him backward, away from the window, with Reiner seemingly just letting her do so, no questions asked.
Once Christa and Reiner were a couple feet from the window, the orange-haired dude stepped onto the windowsill and hopped into the room, Squall hopping off of the guy's back as soon as the group entered. Squall and the orange-haired dude both landed on their feet (Jean did a double-take when he noticed that the orange-haired dude was wearing some type of sandals over what looked like white socks), before the dude let go of the two boys he was holding in his arms. While both boys landed on their feet, the green-haired boy did wobble, if only a little, as his distinctive, white-soled, thick red boots hit the floor.
"Ichigo! Izuku!"
Ruby ran towards the group of four, her arms outstretched as if she was about to engulf at least one of the four guys in a hug. Rukia followed close behind her. Then, as soon as Ruby made it to the green-haired boy, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, actually capturing him in a rather cheerful-looking hug. The boy looked taken-aback at first, only for his face grew more and more red and his hands began waving around almost wildly behind Ruby.
The orange-haired dude looked on at the two, his hands on his hips. "Poor Izuku."
"I see," said the boy with the dual-coloured hair and the burn scar on his eye. He crossed his arms, then cupped his chin between his thumb and forefinger. "So that's Ruby Rose, the girl you and Midoriya were so concerned about?"
"Not so loud. She's smiling, yeah, but that doesn't mean she's not secretly pissed that we came here to help," the orange-haired dude deadpanned, before turning his head toward the window through which he'd just entered a moment ago. "By the way, d'you think Bakugo's gonna come in anytime soon? I hope he doesn't think he's that much of a badass that he can take on those Titans, especially without anyone who'd at least be familiar with the enemy."
The green-haired boy Ruby was hugging, who seemed to go by either Izuku or Midoriya, appeared to come back to his senses. He blinked as his eyes widened and his eyebrows rose, and in that second he took hold of Ruby's shoulders and pulled himself out of her grasp, only to look over his shoulder at the orange-haired dude. "Are you sure he's not using his Quirk to fly around the building? He's not stupid, so maybe he just decided that he was gonna check out the area around this tower so that he could get a better look at the situation."
At that, the boy with the burn scar decided to glance out of the window. "Perhaps. Bakugo might not come off as a guy with a strategy, but from what I've seen of him so far, he does seem to be quite intelligent."
The orange-haired dude gave a wry smile as he averted his eyes. "Of course he is—"
A loud, rough bang shook the room. It came from the far wall at one of the two shorter sides of the room – the only one of the pair of shorter walls that didn't include the set of double doors. As cracks opened up across the wall, dust and sprinkles of powder-like stone or concrete spilled from the ceiling, as well as the cracks littering the wall.
"The hell was that?" Reiner asked, before looking at Izuku (since that was what Ruby had called the green-haired boy). "That wouldn't be your friend, right?"
Izuku shook his head. "I really doubt it. It sounded more like it was caused by something big hitting the outside wall."
"Probably a Titan. Let's hope it's not Athena," Yang said as she glanced between Reiner and Izuku. Her gaze then landed on the cracked wall. She lifted her hands, her fingers straight and her fingertips aimed up at the ceiling, before she clapped her hands together only once. From in-between her palms, a sparkling glow of an almost fiery yellow colour shone outward. "Best those big bastards don't start breaking down the walls of this tower, though."
She took off past the group and charged at the cracked wall, her hands still pressed together and her palms still glowing. As soon as she approached it, she pulled her hands apart and planted them flat on the wall. The glow from her hands swiftly spread across the entire span of the wall, covering the cracks. Once the glow managed to cover the entire wall, the glowing wall quietly, smoothly flashed, and in the blink of an eye, a somewhat-thick, yellow barrier, made from what Jean assumed had to be the energy of Yang's Aura, stood pressed against the wall, Yang's hands now pressed flat against the barrier's surface.
A second bang, sounding harder and more rough than the last one, shook the wall and the room, if only a bit more violently than last time. Worryingly loud snaps and cracks came from the wall and the part of the ceiling just above the wall.
Yeah, that definitely had to be a Titan trying to get in. Surely Athena wouldn't have allowed herself to end up hitting the tower twice?
The wall rumbled again. Then, a wave of pure concussive force blasted through its centre.
Yang's barrier shattered, translucent yellow shards sent flying, alongside the debris from the wall, across the room. Yang herself was also quite literally blown away by the blast, as she was cruelly thrown back towards the crowd of Cadets and Team RWBY's new friends, and hit the floor – once, twice, three times – before she crashed into the wall at the opposite end of the room. A few of the smaller pieces of debris struck her nearly as soon as she hit the wall.
"Yang!" Ruby called, spinning on her heel as her wide-eyed gaze followed Yang. She was quick to take off after Yang, soon managing to make it to Yang's side as Yang dropped down the wall and smacked against the floor again. She crouched down beside Yang before her gaze trailed back towards the newly-made hole in the wall.
Two Titans, standing side-by-side and so close together that the sides of their faces pressed against each other, managed to poke their heads into the hole in the wall. A wide, toothy grin was plastered on either Titan's face.
"Son of a—" Jean started, but cut himself off as a realisation struck him. "There's too many people. They can smell us."
In that moment, every other Cadet turned on their heels and charged, almost as a collective, towards the other end of the room, towards the dark-wood double-doors standing next to where Yang had ended up. Some were pushing and shoving anyone and everyone out of their way, as if to be the first one to get through the doors.
"RUN!"
"They're in!"
"What about Mikasa?! Have you seen her?!"
"She ran out of gas! Forget about her! She's dead!"
"And here I thought I was a cold-hearted bastard," he heard Squall reply, his tone dry and as deadpan as the look on his face.
"Looks like training to kill Titans for three years stops meaning shit when you piss yourself just from looking at their faces," Ymir commented, a sharp bite in her tone.
This is it. This... is reality. Of course it is. How denoted was I? No; no, on some level, I knew it all along. I mean, when you stop and think for a second... it's obvious. There's... there's no winning. Not against them.
"Thomas!" Mina called, before taking off from her spot at the window and heading across the room, through the rush of Cadets, to get to Thomas, who'd ended up on the floor. He'd seemingly been thrown off his chair, which laid on its side as if it'd been knocked over in the chaos.
It was then that Jean noticed his legs. His feet were gone, as was most of one of his lower legs. The ends of his legs were now bandaged stumps. And the fact he was now without feet was only further emphasised when, as Thomas' legs seemed to flail about in his panic, Jean realised that Thomas was more than likely attempting to use what should've been his feet to push himself across the floor.
"It's okay, I've got you," Mina told Thomas, as if to reassure him, as she crouched down beside him and hooked her arms under him, one arm under his shoulders and the other arm under his knees. She lifted him off the floor without much trouble, surprisingly, and held him in her arms. "I've got you," she told him again.
"Lightning," Squall called out over the room. A lengthy, blue-tinted light flashed from inside one of his gloved hands, and when the light vanished, some sort of sword had appeared in his hand, the gun's hilt appearing to be some sort of revolver. The entire sword looked similar to Spring's own modified Titan-killing blades.
The woman with the distinctive pink hair, who'd come through the window earlier, rushed towards Squall, holding a seemingly all-scarlet sword in one hand. She held her other arm at a sharp, steady angle, directly in front of her abdomen, her forearm positioned as if to guard her torso. "Right here!" the pink-haired woman called in return, 'Lightning' apparently being her name, or at least a name that Squall called her.
She and Squall positioned themselves a few feet from the hole in the wall and the faces of the two Titans. Squall held his sword with the blade resting on his shoulder and leading out behind his head. Lightning stood sidelong, holding her red blade low enough to run parallel to her legs. Her empty hand clenched into a fairly claw-like motion, and from her palm, sparks of blue, electric energy burst forth, crackling around her hand.
Just then, large, tan knuckles slammed against the face of the Titan on the right, the one directly in front of Squall. As the knuckles pushed further into the face of the Titan, the Titan's head smashed into the face of the Titan on the left, the one directly in front of Lightning.
As the knuckles shoved their way further into view, so did the rest of the equally-tan fist that, from its size alone, could only belong to another Titan – a different one to Athena, if the appearance of its fist had to be any indication.
Jean's eyes grew wide. He stepped forward.
"WHAT—?!"
Both invading Titans were sent flying out of view, the view of them immediately replaced by the fist and the muscled, well-built, sturdy, steady arm of the Titan who'd attacked them both. The same Titan whose head soon moved into view after its fist.
Its hair, complexion, and the look in its eyes (which Jean couldn't exactly read) seemed a bit too reminiscent of one Eren Jaeger.
At the very least, that Titan definitely wasn't Athena.
The Titan's skinless mouth suddenly opened, letting out the most defiant roar Jean had ever heard in his life.
"You're here! You made it!"
A familiar crimson blur burst past Jean and Ymir, then past Squall and Lightning, red rose petals fluttering and scattering in its wake. Upon approaching the hole in the wall, Ruby twirled out of the blur, and simultaneously, the Titan blinked, almost alarmed, at her. Ruby managed to grab onto the Titan's hair and swung onto its face.
"Looks like I got here before you did!" Ruby told him, a bright smile plastered on her face.
The Titan's gaze turned from alarmed to deadpan.
Just then, Mikasa smashed feet-first through the window nearest the broken wall, followed closely by Blake, and then Weiss, who was carrying Armin on her shoulder, while she used one arm to hold him up. After Weiss, a small boy with distinctive, spiky white hair quite literally flew into the room, his ice wings barely drawing inward enough for them to fit through the window with him.
He wore a similar uniform to that of Rukia and the orange-haired dude from earlier, but with a sleeveless, mostly-white, ankle-length coat over the top. And across his back and torso, a green sash laid, adorned with some sort of star-shaped badge or pin at the front. And, while the skin of his forearms and hands were also covered in ice, he held a silver-bladed sword, similar to the one he'd seen Rukia holding earlier, in one hand, his sword bearing a chain attached to the pommel, the chain leading to the silver crescent-shaped blade which hung on the end of it.
The five of them landed just behind Squall and Lightning.
Jean rushed forward, and from the corner of his eye, noticed Connie doing the same. As they both stopped a few feet from the group of five, Jean blurted out the first thing that came to mind:
"Mikasa! Blake! You're—"
"Whoa, are you guys alright? Where were you all?" Connie asked, cutting him off.
Sasha, too, made a beeline for the group of five. As she stopped at Jean's other side, she kept looking between Blake and Mikasa. "Whoa, what happened to you two? You guys look like you got pretty roughed up."
"It's nothing to worry about," Blake reassured them, offering a small smile. She turned her head and looked up at Squall. "I think Armin's worse off. Weiss was able to save him from two Titans, but when she got him back, we realised he'd been injured. The pain's in his torso and back. Can you use a Cure spell on him?"
Squall stayed quiet for a second, before sparing a glance at Armin.
Weiss had set Armin down, laying him on his back, mostly on the floor but with his head resting on her lap. She'd left her weapon on the floor beside her and was now looking at Squall expectantly.
Squall averted his eyes. "Sure. Just remember that I won't be able to keep doing this all day."
Blake Belladonna
Blake stepped into the candle-lit room, finding the lift in the centre of floor a welcome sight. She stopped just after the room's entrance, eyes trailing across the room, noting the Cadets gathered in their own somewhat-sparsely-parted groups, Blake's own friends mixed in with the Cadets Blake was at least familiar with and knew the names of.
Blake clapped her hands twice, loud enough to get their attention. Once all eyes were on her, she began:
"Ruby and Noctis are going to be staying and keeping lookout from the other room. If you'd like to assist in keeping watch, you can just go in and let them know that you want to help, and honestly, the more eyes we have on the situation out there, the better, since Athena, as well as Izuku's friend, Kacchan, have been unaccounted for since the last two groups arrived, and that was fifteen minutes ago. That being said, Athena's already been fighting since this Titan invasion began, so while it is a likely possibility that she's exhausted herself, it's also just as likely that she's still fighting because at this point, fifteen minutes probably isn't all that much time in her eyes, compared to how long she's already been fighting today so far. I'd also place my bet on the idea that, from what we know of her character so far, that she would be making an effort to try and protect Izuku's friend."
"What about Ruby's Titan friend, the Rogue?" Mikasa was sat in a kneeling position on the floor, her hands clenched into loose fists as they rested on her lap. She sat as part of a small circle, made up of Squall, Armin, Weiss, Tōshirō, Rukia, Spring, Ichigo, and Izuku.
"You can probably hear him from here, but from what it looked like in there," with a quirk of her thumb, Blake gestured at the space over her shoulder, an almost half-assed indication she was talking about the other room with all the shattered windows and the hole in the wall, "he was the one doing most of the work outside. It may just be me, but he doesn't look like he's going to be stopping anytime soon. Considering how eager he's been and still seems to be about taking on the Titans, I doubt they're going to take this building – not with him on a rampage out there."
"That's all well and good, but what's to keep him from turning on us once he's done?" Reiner asked, causing everyone to look towards him. He sat cross-legged on the floor, close to Connie and Annie.
"The only thing I can see stopping him from doing that is himself, or whatever his reasons are for turning against his own kind. He's shown he actually cares about us, too, such as when he saved Mikasa and I, and when he appeared to get rather angry when Armin was attacked on our way here. There's also the fact he made friends with Ruby. While taking out the Titans does seem to be his main priority, he's also shown that he cares for the wellbeing of each of us, much like Athena."
"Honestly, if you ask me, his care for you guys is probably the reason he went rogue in the first place," Ichigo said, his arms folded across his chest. "Either way, we'll just have to wait until he's done fighting to see what he'll do."
"In other words, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Squall, too, crossed his arms. Then, his eyes darted away from Reiner before meeting Blake's gaze. "By the way, I've been thinking about sending Shiva out to offer some assistance against the Titans."
Mikasa blinked at him before tilting her head. "Shiva? Who's that?"
"To make a long story short, she's a creature with magical powers that Squall can summon. Her powers revolve around ice," Lightning explained from where she stood with her arms crossed and her back resting against the wall, only a few feet behind Mikasa.
Weiss cupped her chin with her forefinger and thumb, propping her raised arm up on her other palm. "From what I've seen so far, ice attacks have often proved rather effective when dealing with the Titans." She looked to her left, where Tōshirō sat beside her. "You were able to shatter one into pieces after I froze it almost entirely."
Tōshirō looked up at her. "I'm guessing we're just discovering this now because there was no way to freeze these Titans before we came along."
Just then, Blake remembered a point Ruby had made to Eren just after their arrival:
"I don't get why you would get complacent with what you have. If you put in the time and effort, you could've developed better equipment and made yourselves better off. Same goes for the cannons. You've spent over one hundred years behind walls and the most impressive thing you've managed to develop is probably that gear, while the cannons are, again, ancient and likely worn down by age."
"That reminds me," Blake said as she stepped further into the room, a bit towards Tōshirō's group, before stopping a little close to the nearest corner of the lift. "Ruby was talking to Eren this morning about the equipment this military has in order to combat the Titans. Ruby had a hard time wrapping her head around why the ODM Gear seemed to be the only piece of equipment this military had that looked impressive, while the cannons looked as ancient as their capabilities as weapons probably were."
"'Course Ruby would point out something like that," Ichigo sighed, his expression deadpan. "She's probably the only person I know who would notice if something was off with someone's equipment."
The other boy Izuku had brought with him from his world – the same boy who Izuku had introduced to Blake and the others as Shoto Todoroki – then turned his head around to look up at Blake over his shoulder. "That's the first time I've heard any of you mention someone called Eren."
"Actually, yeah. Now that I think about it, we haven't met someone with that name yet, and I'm pretty sure you guys have introduced us to every Cadet you know the name of. It looks like he's one of the only Cadets you know by name that isn't here with us." Ichigo blinked, eyebrows creased with concern. Turning his head, he sent a slightly worried look Rukia's way. "You were out there, right? With Momo? Did you two meet anyone called Eren?"
"No, but I did hear about him," Rukia told him, looking up at him. "When we were following the traces of Ruby's Aura Signature in order to find her, we found an area on the Middle Guard where we also found traces of Weiss' and Blake's Aura Signatures. There, we met the spirits of two Cadets, Nack and Milieus. They were about as confused as you'd expect, but after Momo and I explained who we were and what we were doing there and what our jobs as Soul Reapers involved, they both told us about how they and everyone else in their squad had gone after Eren at some point but that they'd been attacked before they could get to him, and so they didn't get to see if he'd died after they saw him lose his leg. We told them that if he'd died in the same area as them, then his spirit would be nearby. But when we searched the area for him, we couldn't find his spirit."
"So, either he wandered off, or he's still alive," Tōshirō pointed out. "Or both," he added after a beat. "However much it boggles the mind to think that he could've just wandered off if one of his legs were missing."
"That's what we thought. Momo suggested that we should split up so that we could keep looking for Ruby and Eren simultaneously. I would search for Ruby, while she would look for other spirits that needed taking care of, with a priority on finding Eren's Soul in particular."
Tōshirō turned his head to look at Rukia. "So, Momo might still be looking for him out there?"
"I'd assume so. She told me she would inform me if she found him or managed to find any info on him or his whereabouts, but I haven't heard back from her yet."
"Good news!" Jean called from the room's entrance.
Blake swivelled on her heels just in time to see Jean walk into the room with a lengthy wooden case or crate. A bunch of Cadets were following behind him, each one of them also holding other wooden cases, save for one Cadet who happened to be holding what seemed to be a thick, square piece of paper that appeared to be quite worn, as it looked fairly drab and a bit dirty.
Jean stopped a bit into the room, and held up the case he was holding in his arms. "Courtesy of the Military Police! And covered with a layer of dust."
"About time," Ymir groaned as she rested her intertwined hands behind her head, her knuckles pressing against the wall she was sitting against. Sitting directly beside Ymir, at Ymir's left-hand side, Yang had her arms crossed under her chest and her eyes closed, her head tilted downward.
The yellow energy from Yang's Aura permeated from and around her form, while the warm, golden glow of her Guard enveloped her from head to toe, causing Yang's blonde hair to almost shine like it usually did whenever she activated her Semblance. She was recovering her Aura through resting, Blake knew. And, from what Blake had heard from Ruby and Spring and the others, Yang really seemed to be in need of rest. She'd taken more than a few hard hits today, and there was only so far she would be able to push herself, even with her Semblance.
"Aren't those the same cases you keep those old-style guns in?" Squall asked, before looking from Jean to Blake. "They're called muskets, right?"
"I think so. Ruby knows more about weapons like that than I do, but she did teach me that those types of guns usually lose their efficiency at a certain range. Ten feet or so before their ammo lose momentum, I'm pretty sure," Blake told him.
"Still, Armin was the one who asked Jean and the others to find those guns," Weiss reminded them, "so I'm sure he has a plan for how they're going to be used."
Izuku looked over at Armin then. "You have a strategy?"
Jean and the others set the wooden cases on the floor just behind Blake. The Cadet holding the paper placed the roll in the centre of the collection of cases, before he rolled open the paper, revealing a diagram or blueprint of the supply room below, the blueprint apparently drawn from a birds-eye view of the room.
As the rest of the Cadets stood up and began to gather around the wooden cases and the blueprint laid out on the floor, Armin also rose to his feet. He held his hand out for Izuku, and as Izuku took it, he answered: "Sort of. More of a half-baked plan of attack. It's been in the back of my mind ever since I heard Blake telling Mikasa that she'd ended up finding a few Titans down there."
"Oh! I remember Squall and Yang mentioning that earlier," Izuku said as he took Armin's hand. As Armin pulled him to his feet, Izuku gave him a somewhat puzzled look. "They said there were several Titans, though. Oh—not that I'm trying to argue semantics here, or anything. It's just that it sounded like more Titans had showed up at some point after Blake was able to check their numbers the first time."
"Oh, no, don't worry, I get what you're saying. Honestly, I kind of expected that more of them would've gotten in. I mean, by the time Blake told us, it'd already been a while since we knew anyone had checked the supply room to see if their numbers had increased." Armin released Izuku's hand and turned towards where the rest of the group had set themselves up around the collection of musket cases and the diagram laid out on the floor. He started heading towards the group, Izuku following at his side. "In any case, that means there's more than likely seven Titans down there, at least."
"Good thing we have more than seven capable fighters who should be able to take them down, then." Lightning stopped near Mikasa's left-hand side, standing only a bit behind Mikasa.
Armin made his way to the space the group had left for him, directly beside the blueprint. "Yeah," he agreed as he lowered himself into a kneeling position on the floor and planted his hands on his thighs. "I'm not too worried about you guys not being able to pull this off, although I'm aware that it is a possibility. What I'm particularly worried about is the fact that most of us don't have any gas left, and what with the number of Titans down there, there probably won't be all that much room for us to really use our gear effectively even if we did have enough gas."
Blake looked over at Lightning. "And that's bound to be a problem for the Cadets who'd also be capable of pulling this off with us."
"Makes sense, I guess." Lightning unfolded her arms and planted her hands on her hips. "So, the only way for you guys to get more gas is to get into the same supply room that's currently filled with Titans, I'm guessing."
"That's about the gist of it," Ymir told her.
"Anyway, are you absolutely sure buckshot is the way to go?" Jean asked, glancing at Armin. He'd already opened one of the wooden cases and taken out the musket that'd been in it. A few clicks came from the gun as he readied it. He then decided to inspect its condition, making sure to hold it with its muzzle aimed up towards the ceiling, the butt of the gun barely touching the floor. "Seems like we might as well throw spit-wads. I mean, come on guys. Are guns even effective?"
"Maybe not for killing them, but at the very least, even those guns should be able to stun them if we use them at the right moment," Weiss offered as an answer, as if attempting to reassure Jean.
Armin nodded as he looked at Jean. "We're looking at seven Titans in the supply room of the four-metres-tall variety. If we time this perfectly, this much ammo ought to be enough to do the trick.
"Step one: we lower a group into the area via lift, to get the Titans' attention. Step two: when the Titans come within range, the group fires in all four directions simultaneously, blinding them. Then, the hard part. The 'moment of truth', as it were. Before the Titans have time to recover, seven of us swoop down from the ceiling and strike their vital regions.
"That's it; that's the plan. It puts all our lives on the line. We screw up, we're dead."
"That's a bit pessimistic," Squall said, prompting Blake, Lightning, and Weiss to look over at him with wide eyes, their expressions incredulous. As if ignoring them, he then turned his head to look at Armin. "I'm sure we can place a few of us around to act as backup in case anyone screws up. Let's not assume we'll all end up damned if someone misses their mark."
With raised brows, Weiss looked over at Lightning. "Are we just going to ignore the fact that he said that?"
Ichigo folded his arms as he arched a brow at Squall. "Since when were you so... optimistic?"
"Come on," Tōshirō spoke up, his tone sharp. He momentarily closed his eyes. "It's not like he's bound to be grumpy all the time. Besides," he opened his eyes to look over at Armin, "I think you came up with a good plan, in any case. Your plan sounds much more organised compared to the idea of leaving the lot of us to ambush the Titans with whatever powers and whatnot that we're willing to use."
"Still, I'd say we could at least have one or two of us," with a repeated flick of her forefinger, Weiss gestured between Blake and Izuku, "standing with you guys in the lift; so if something goes wrong, we can use our abilities to stop them."
"I'm with Weiss on that one," Blake agreed. Considering my proficiency with capture and binding techniques, I'd be the best choice for that position. Even so, we can't guarantee that anything will go wrong, either, and I can't just leave killing the Titans to Ichigo and the others since I'm not sure if they even know how to kill Titans in the first place. And you can't exactly just chop up a Titan like you do with Hollows and Grimm. "Rukia, you're an expert at Kidō, right?"
"I am," Rukia replied, her tone giving off hints of confusion and curiosity, as she looked up, over her shoulder, at Blake. "Are you thinking I'd be a good choice for that position?"
Blake nodded. "If you're up for it."
Rukia gave her a small smile. "Sure. I'll do my best."
Blake, Weiss, Spring, Mikasa, Annie, Reiner, and Bertholdt had ended up being the main seven tasked with taking out the Titans for this... operation, so to speak. That said, since the Cadets happened to be more at risk of missing their targets, given they no longer had any gas, which could've given them a better chance to reach the weak-spot of the Titans they'd each been tasked with killing, the group had ended up deciding to pair Squall with Annie, so Annie would have some form of backup, as well as have Lightning act as Reiner's backup, too. Ichigo had also been paired with Mikasa for the same purpose, and Tōshirō had been paired with Bertholdt.
They'd left Izuku and Shoto in the room above, to look after Yang and Thomas while Ruby and Noctis were still keeping watch over whatever was happening outside the tower. Neither of the boys had any weapons with them (unless their Quirks could be classed as such), nor did they particularly have much experience in wielding a weapon of any kind, and while Shoto's ice powers could've proved useful, both Blake and Squall had made sure to stress to him that they didn't exactly want to risk creating more of a mess and causing more damage to Trost, or at least any area of the city (particularly inside this tower), especially if it happened to be unnecessary and could be avoided.
This city had been turned into enough of a mess already; the least they could do is avoid adding to the damage if they didn't have to.
Annie was poised on the support beam to Blake's left, her white hood hanging over her head. Squall stood, sidelong, a bit behind her, holding his Revolver gunblade in one hand, its blade running parallel to his legs.
Reiner had set himself up on the support beam to Blake's right, holding his swords with one blade crossed over the other, while the heels of his palms pressed against the beam. A bit behind him, Lightning stood, holding her Crimson Blitz sword in one hand and her Blazefire Saber gunblade in the other, both blades positioned so low they ran parallel to her legs as well.
The lift lowered into the room. Lined up at each side of the lift were the Cadets, each one holding a musket, some of the taller Cadets being lined up just-about behind the smaller ones making up the front line at each side of the lift.
Rukia stood in the centre of the lift. The Cadets had left plenty of space for Rukia, an almost-square-shaped space surrounding her.
The lift stopped around four metres from the room's floor.
"Good; we're still at seven," Blake barely heard Marco whisper, as he stood in the middle of Armin and Jean. Had it not been for Blake's cat ears, hidden by her matte-black bow, she doubted she would've been able to hear him. "Okay now, nice and easy."
A chorus of metallic clicks echoed around the room as each and every Cadet on the lift readied their respective musket and aimed it towards the dimly-lit space ahead of them, each muzzle, and the end of each barrel attached to it, leaning over the a side of the lift.
Beneath the beam on which Blake was standing upright, one of the four-metre Titans (this one bearing a head of hair that looked quite similar to Armin's, if only a bit darker) stepped into view, standing sidelong only several feet from the side of the lift at which Armin, Jean, and Marco stood. Its head suddenly turned, bits of its hair almost swishing as it faced the three boys and the other Cadets at their side of the lift.
One smaller Cadet, who stood next to Marco, instantly responded to the Titan's stare by almost letting a frightened noise escape from his throat, as if he was trying to hold back a scream. The Cadet's mouth was open but his teeth were pressed together, while his eyes had grown wide and his hands started twitching.
"Keep your cool!" Marco shot a glance at the Cadet. The look on Marco's face seemed to offer an unspoken warning. "Fire only when they're all within range!"
As the blond Titan turned fully, facing the lift directly, the other six Titans in the room began to surround the other three sides of the lift, two Titans each facing one of the other three sides. When the blond Titan stepped towards the lift, its heavy, loud footfall briefly shaking the ground, the other six Titans did the same, at just-about the same time, almost as if on cue.
Marco's voice sounded quieter as he spoke again: "Steady..."
Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.
Marco closed one eye as he lined the other up with the small, indistinct scope sitting atop the barrel of his musket. "Almost..."
Stomp. Stomp.
Stomp.
…Stomp.
The blond Titan stopped its advance, apparently halted by all the muskets, each and every muzzle nearly, nearly touching the surface of either of its large eyes.
The same could be said for the other six Titans.
"FIRE!"
A flurry of golden flashes and loud clicks and bangs erupted from every muzzle, lighting up the space around the lift and even distracting Blake for a split-second. Bits of smoke and steam soon followed, rising from the eyes of each and every Titan.
The blond Titan stumbled backward.
Blake sprang soundlessly from the support beam, the first of the group to do so. Weiss and the rest of the Cadets were quick to follow, though, as they swooped down from their own support beams after her.
She drew her katana and sheath back, to one side, before the sole of her boot ever-so-softly landed on one of the blond Titan's shoulder-blades. Then she swung. As she sliced through the nape, carving out a leaf-shaped piece of flesh, her blades each drew a purple arc through the back of the Titan's neck. Her blades tore from the opposite side of the neck from where she'd started, and as the Titan stumbled backward again, she hopped off its shoulder-blades and into a backflip.
She landed softly on the floor, skidding smoothly for a second before she stopped, her legs bent and her blades held low at her sides.
Once the blond Titan stumbled and collapsed on its back, hitting the floor with a massive, crashing thud, the rest of the Titans seemed to follow suit, wobbling almost limply before they each dropped to the floor in a steady chorus of thuds.
Well, all except one.
The Titan that Bertholdt was supposed to handle had also stumbled, but... it continued to stand. It went as far as to raise its hand up toward the now-steaming and... rather shallow pair of cuts Bertholdt had drawn into the back of its neck.
"Shit! My cuts were too shallow!" Bertholdt called once he landed, some feet from the other side of Reiner. He looked up at the Titan he'd attacked, only for that same Titan to turn on its heel and face him, its eyes fully regenerated and its face like thunder. Bertholdt's eyes shot wide open and his brows rose.
"Tōshirō!" Weiss called out from the other side of Bertholdt.
"Bakudō Sixty-One: Rikujōkōrō!" Rukia then called, before six thin, wide beams of yellow energy slammed into the surviving Titan's midsection, halting it in its tracks.
Tōshirō tore his Zanpakutō from the sheath across his back—
Blake sensed Spring making a beeline for the Titan.
Blake looked over just in time to see Spring dart across the room with incredible speed. Upon approaching the back of the Titan, Spring then sprang high into the air, swiftly swinging herself into a twirl as her blades shone lilac, coated in a sharp cloak of her Aura. Her blades sliced through the back of the Titan's neck easily, carving smoothly into the weak-spot, the incisions so deep in the neck that it looked like she'd almost decapitated the Titan.
The wide beams of Rukia's Rikujōkōrō soon shattered, the pieces dissipating into thin air.
The Titan stumbled again, before finally falling. Bertholdt turned and dived towards Reiner, before rolling once and swivelling as he rose into a crouching position, just in time to avoid the Titan as it hit the floor with a heavy, quaking thud.
Spring landed, softly, on the back of the now-dead Titan's head. Her head briefly hung low, but as she pivoted to face the group in the lift, she raised her... nonchalant gaze to the rest of the Cadets. "The room's clear now. It's safe to come down. As it should be."
It seemed to take a second for the news to settle in, but once it did, the Cadets in the lift were quick to start cheering for their success.
"We're gonna make it! We're gonna live!"
"No more of 'em coming in! Thank you, crazy berserker Titan!"
After that, the lift was soon lowered, and all the Cadets except for Spring began to go about resupplying their gear with gas, and, at least in Mikasa's case, blades.
"Are you sure you're gonna need those regular blades?" Blake asked as she decided to approach Mikasa. "Is there... something wrong with the ones that Spring made for you?"
Mikasa looked up from the long, rectangular crate she was kneeling next to, having only just opened the lid. In a bed of stiff-looking, drab-coloured padding, a pile of a few blades laid in the centre of the crate, each blade layered on top of one another, surrounded and cushioned by the padding. "No, her swords are good. I just can't be sure I won't inadvertently dull their blades, like I did back at the gate with a pair of the normal ones."
"Did Spring not teach you that you can use your Aura to protect your blades from going dull or breaking? It works in much the same way that protecting yourself from injury works – by enveloping them in the energy of your Aura."
Mikasa blinked, her brows flicking upwards. "Oh, I see. I believe Spring mentioned something about that, actually. It sounds quite convenient."
"She didn't go more in detail about it?"
"She told me once that she didn't want to overwhelm me with everything she knows about Aura."
"Ah. That makes sense. Honestly, I'd be worried about that too, if I were her."
"You would?"
Blake nodded. "I think any of us would be worried about overwhelming any of you guys by dumping all this info about concepts like Aura and Semblances onto you. I can only imagine how strange it must've been to even learn about, let alone be able to do once you find out you can. In Remnant, Auras and Semblances are concepts that are known worldwide, no matter which continent you're in, but here, they'd be practically unheard of if not for Spring and the others from her village."
"Blake," Tōshirō spoke up from behind her, if a bit to her left. She turned sidelong to face him, finding his arms crossed over his chest as he looked up at her. Despite his stance, he didn't appear to be angry or irritated, but only a bit confused. "I wanted to talk with you first because I know you'd be one of the first people who would suspect if something was off."
"Uh... okay?" Blake blinked, cocking her head at him. "What's this about?"
"Back there, when... Bertholdt, was it? When he missed." Tōshirō shot a glance over his shoulder, at the lift. He met Blake's eyes again. "Something about that entire moment just... didn't seem quite right. I assume he normally has better form than that. I find it hard to believe he'd have been considered one of the best for the job, otherwise."
"Honestly, I was surprised he missed, too. Considering he came third in the top ten of our class, I'd have expected him to be on point," Mikasa told him, as she picked up the first blade in the box and slipped it into the outer-end slot of her left sheath. "Especially at a do-or-die moment like that. I know he can sometimes get nervous but he usually doesn't get like that in these types of situations. Or, at least he didn't when the lot of us were in training."
"I see..." Tōshirō cupped his chin with his forefinger and thumb. "I was just worried about how off it all looked. He seemed rather composed, but when he attacked, it looked like he somehow was and wasn't thinking about any of it at the same time. It was odd to watch. Just what could've been going on with him at that moment?"
"You think there's something wrong with Bertholdt?" Blake asked, making sure to keep her voice quiet.
"I'm not sure. Still, if anything, I'd recommend keeping an eye on him, at least for now."
Katsuki Bakugo
"Come on!" The shout came from deep within his throat, aimed at the talking girl Titan, who'd told him, almost as soon as he met her, that she'd been named Athena. "You're one of these Titans, aren't you? I thought you guys were supposed to be tough! Able to regenerate and all that!"
"Fighting takes energy," she told him from her kneeling position on the ground. Even sitting down, she was still gigantic enough to completely tower over him just the same as every other building he'd seen around here so far – and that was despite the fact that he was currently standing on the middle of her cupped palms. "Staying conscious takes energy."
Yeah, obviously. What, did she think he was a fucking idiot or something? He snarled at her. "Give me a break! You think I don't know that?!"
"Regeneration also takes energy," she then told him, seeming to completely ignore what he'd just said. "I have to be careful. And I have been fighting near constantly so far today. I feel that I need a break. If you were me, would you not need one?"
He gritted his teeth. As much as he hated to admit it, she had him there, and Katsuki wasn't going to lie to her. He hated liars. "Alright, fine. Yeah, I guess I would..."
"Then you understand," Athena said, voice tinged with what sounded like hope. Then, she gingerly, almost shakily, rose to her feet, and steadily raised her hands. She placed him on the tiled rooftop of one of the buildings attached to the side of the main tower. Almost as soon as his boots touched the tiles, she drew her hands back towards herself. "The smell of Titans coming from the tower is gone now. It seems your friends got rid of them. Now those Titans seem to be gone, you might want to go and check on the Cadets."
"Don't tell me what to do!" Katsuki retorted automatically. Still, even after saying that, he turned on his heel and flexed his gloved hands out behind him, palms facing the tiles. He fired a pair of decently-sized explosions from each hand, launching himself over the other side of the rooftop and far into the courtyard up ahead.
He landed in front of a large set of double-doors that'd been left wide open, and almost immediately, a pair of wires zipped past him – a bit too close for comfort, too, as they narrowly missed Katsuki's chest by a few inches. A second later, one of those Cadets quickly followed, breezing past him as if they couldn't fucking wait to get out of that tower.
Oughta watch my step. Considering the situation, I wouldn't expect half of these Cadets to really give a shit about catching me with those wires.
He looked over towards the double-doors again.
Another Cadet, a boy around his own age, with blond hair styled in a bowlcut, stood just in front of the open space, only a few feet away from Katsuki. His round blue eyes widened when his gaze landed on Katsuki.
"Oh! You're... Izuku's friend, right? The other one from his, uh, world?"
"He been talking about me or something?" Katsuki asked, planting his hands on his hips.
"Up until now, he only said he was worried about how you would be faring out here, with all the Titans still in the vicinity. Especially since you haven't exactly had that much of a chance yet to learn what you're dealing with when it comes to Titans."
"What, because those bastards can regenerate? Yeah, Athena told me as much."
"Ah." The boy gave him a small smile. "So, you at least know that, then. That's good, since now you hopefully won't be taken by surprise when they heal."
"Whatever you say," Katsuki told him, offering a shrug of his shoulders. "What's your name, anyway?"
"Oh, my name's Armin." The boy, Armin, tilted his head. "Izuku called you... Kacchan, right?"
Katsuki grimaced. "My actual name is Katsuki Bakugo. 'Kacchan' is just a stupid nickname that Deku likes to call me. Most people just call me Bakugo."
"Bakugo it is, then."
Katsuki caught movement at his left. He looked toward the source, only to find that Squall dude walking out of the double-doors, with Spring, that other Cadet, at his side. Both of them were quick to notice him.
"Oh, so you found your way here, finally," Squall remarked, his tone annoyingly dry. His eyes flicked to meet Armin's. "Mikasa hasn't gone far. In fact, she hasn't even left the area. She's over there," Squall looked to his right and raised a hand, pointing toward the row of buildings up ahead, lining that side of the courtyard, "as far as we can tell from her Aura Signature."
"I can see her!" Armin blinked at one of the buildings. He glanced between Katsuki and the other two. "She knows we're supposed to be leaving now that we managed to resupply our gear. She could've already gone by now."
Squall looked back, over his shoulder, at Armin. "Looks like something's got her attention. Could be something to do with the Rogue, since we haven't heard him going about his rampage in a little while."
"You think so?"
Spring looked over at Armin, too, and nodded. "We should go and see what's going on for ourselves."
"You guys first. I'd rather not have another near-miss with those wires you bastards keep shooting around," Katsuki told her.
"As long as you're here, you may as well get used to it," Squall retorted, throwing another glance over his shoulder, this time at Katsuki.
Armin offered Katsuki a sheepish smile, before taking off ahead of the group. He launched his wires forward, towards the rooftop that Mikasa girl was standing on, and once they appeared to lodge themselves in the tiles, a puff of what looked like steam or smoke (he couldn't tell which, or if it was either steam or smoke at all), burst out of a piece of metal sitting on the small of his back. Whatever had came out of that piece of metal equipment, it'd apparently been more than enough to propel him high into the air while he drew himself forward with his wires.
Spring was quick to follow him, springing (ha) off the ground and high into the air, launching towards the same rooftop at an... impressive speed, more or less.
Nothing he couldn't do with a few explosions; but, then again, she didn't need explosions to do that, now did she?
Katsuki and Squall took off after her at the same time, Katsuki aiming his palms at the ground and firing off a pair of large explosions behind him, while Squall simply did as Spring had only just done. Katsuki blasted forth, flying higher as he closed in on the rooftop, before his feet hit the canopy, and he stuck his landing on the tiles just a few feet from where Armin and Spring were standing on the rooftop's ridge. Squall landed beside him.
"Thought you were faster than that, Lionheart," Katsuki remarked, firing a sidelong glare at Squall.
Squall responded by shooting a deadpan glance back at him. "Bold of you to assume I was trying."
"Uh, guys?" Spring piped up, glancing at the two of them from over her shoulder. "You might wanna see this." Her gaze landed on Squall. "You were right."
"About the Rogue?" Squall blinked. His brows furrowed. He and Katsuki shared a look, before they both trudged up to the ridge, side-by-side. Once up there, the both of them stopped in-between Armin and Spring.
Mikasa stood a bit in front of them, her back turned to the group.
In the street ahead of them, several Titans were pinning the Rogue against the building standing opposite the one on which the group was standing. The poor bastard had at least one Titan chewing a limb each. Both of his arms were missing, each one having somehow been severed just below his shoulders. Every one of the smaller Titans that'd crowded around looked like they were trying to chew on his legs. Katsuki even spotted several sets of bite marks on the skin of his legs already.
"Cannibalism?" Armin gasped beside him. "Can he not regenerate like the others?"
"Fighting takes energy."
"Regeneration also takes energy."
"And I have been fighting near constantly so far today. I feel I need a break."
"Doubt it," Katsuki said. "Poor bastard has to be just as tired as Athena is. With how much he's been fighting today, chances are he hasn't even got any energy left to try and heal himself."
"Shouldn't we help him then?" Spring looked over at Katsuki, then at Squall, then at Katsuki again. "If you're right, then we should get them off of him as soon as we can so that he can rest, too."
Squall pulled the left side of his jacket open and reached into what must've been a zipped-up pocket attached to the interior. "That's a lot of Titans, though, and we're probably gonna end up pissing off the lot of them. We're gonna need to be fast about it. You go on and get a head-start. I'll text Ruby and tell her to bring Ichigo, just in case."
"And what if more of those bastards start showing up?" Katsuki asked.
Squall pulled out one of those devices Katsuki knew they used on Remnant – a Scroll, was it? One of the smaller Scrolls that looked and acted a lot like a smartphone. "Why d'you think I'm telling her to get Ichigo? Hopefully, if that happens, he and I will be able to sort that out." He raised one of his gloved hands to his mouth and bit down on the tips of his index and middle fingers, before pulling his hand out of the glove. He continued to hold his glove between his teeth while he typed on his Scroll with his bare hand. "You can also stay here, since you have no weapons," he managed to tell Katsuki, regardless of the fact he was holding his glove in his mouth.
"I am a weapon, you bastard," Katsuki retorted with a snarl.
"So are he and Athena." Squall shot a glance at the Rogue. After a final tap on the screen of his Scroll, he closed it and slipped it back into the pocket in the interior of his jacket. He took his glove out of his mouth before he spoke again, this time much clearer: "Ruby's on her way. She said she'll have Noctis keep watch over Athena."
"Just in case the same thing might happen to her?" Spring asked.
"Yeah. After all, they've had a habit of going after her, too, as soon as they see that she's fighting back against them instead of trying to kill us." Squall looked over at Spring then. He shoved his bare hand into his glove, flexing his fingers briefly before he summoned that Revolver gunblade of his into his grip with a flash of pale-blue light. "Anyway, let's go. He's not gonna wait forever."
With a quick nod, Spring then took off down the tiles ahead of the group, followed closely by Squall. They skidded off the edge of the rooftop and flew forward, Spring immediately firing the wires on either side of her waist.
"This may sound stupid, but I was hoping he'd be the key for us," Mikasa suddenly piped up, as Spring's wires both lodged into the back of the head of the small Titan that was biting into the Rogue's right leg. "That he'd help mankind break the cycle. Turn the tides just long enough to give us a little ray of hope."
"Hey, now, don't start talking like he's already had it," Katsuki told her, shooting her a glance. "He's not shit out of luck just yet, alright?"
"Kacchan!"
Ah, fuck; trust Deku to miraculously show up whenever some jackass needed saving.
Katsuki turned when he heard rapid footfalls pitter-pattering across the tiles, coming from his right-hand side, and before he could fire off an explosion to get Deku to back the fuck off, Deku's arms wrapped around him, and his forehead hit Katsuki's shoulder.
"You're okay! Todoroki and I were so worried!"
First of all, what the fuck?
And secondly, why the fuck? Since when would Icyhot have been worried about Katsuki, of all people?
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Deku," he snapped, tone and expression deadpan. "How the hell did you get up here without breaking your legs, anyway?"
"Oh!" Deku pulled away from him, his expression still bright, despite Katsuki's words. "Reiner carried me up here." And with an open hand and a half-turn, he pointed out the tall, somewhat broadly-built Cadet standing just a few feet behind him, his expression rather stoic. His blond hair looked a little spiky, although his hair looked almost too short to even be able to tell as much.
The Cadet, apparently called 'Reiner', was also accompanied by a short girl, probably the same height as Spring, but with blonde hair and a deadpan look on her face, just like the one Squall usually wore. And then, Katsuki noticed the third one, a much-taller Cadet with black hair and the barest traces of nervousness etched onto his face, while he stood at Icyhot's left.
"So you're Kacchan, huh? Nice to see you're not hurt any, considering how long you've been unaccounted for out here," said the one Deku had introduced as Reiner.
"Only Deku calls me Kacchan these days," Katsuki told him, jerking his head at Deku. "My name's actually Bakugo. Katsuki Bakugo."
"Well, I'm Reiner, and these two here are Annie and Bertholdt. Bert's the one who carried your buddy Todoroki up here." He shot a glance over his shoulder at the tall Cadet with black hair, apparently called Bertholdt. "Anyway, I think you're right about him." Reiner looked over at the Rogue. "He's too valuable to just let die. There's too much we can learn from him. I think it's perfectly clear that our priorities should be to ward the scavengers off him. He's no good to us ripped apart."
"We're here!"
The feminine, somewhat high-pitched shout came from behind the group as two pairs of feet landed on the tiles.
Katsuki made a half-turn, looking to see who'd shown up now.
The first person he immediately took notice of was Ichigo Kurosaki, Deku's Substitute Soul Reaper friend. Then, it was the short, silver-eyed girl beside him, who bore crimson streaks throughout her short, otherwise-black hair, while she wore a long, distinctive, mainly-crimson jacket.
"Ruby! Ichigo! You guys came to help?" Deku cocked his head at them.
They both hurried up to the ridge of the rooftop and stopped beside Katsuki and Deku. The silver-eyed girl, apparently the very same girl named 'Ruby' that Deku had been talking so much about lately, held a mainly-red hunk of metal in her hands as if it happened to be a gun.
"Squall texted me. Said the Rogue was in trouble and told me to bring Ichigo," she told Deku.
"Hey, you two!" Squall called out from the building across the street. When the entire group turned to look at him, they found him standing on top of the Rogue's right shoulder, his empty arm raised. He pointed to his right, down the street. "Ichigo, Annie! I can see a few more Titans approaching from either side, so we'll split up and take care of them! Ichigo, you're with me!"
"It's fine, just bark orders at me, that's fine," Kurosaki commented under his breath, his expression looking a bit blank.
Annie, the short blonde girl who'd showed up with Reiner, was quick to approach Kurosaki, a sword in either hand. "Well, you heard him. Let's go."
"Alright, alright..." Kurosaki pulled his giant sword off his back. The wraps coiled around it quickly unravelled, revealing the blade in all its glory. He held it down by his side as he decided to leap from the rooftop.
Annie soon followed, hopping from the edge of the rooftop and swinging herself to face her left-hand side. She fired her wires down the street, only to burst forth with a blast of whatever-the-fuck-that-white-stuff-was from the piece of metal around the back of her waist.
Meanwhile, Kurosaki headed down the opposite end of the street.
"Ruby! You're on this guy! Help Spring take down the Titans on him!" Squall called again.
"Right!" Ruby responded, equally as loud.
(If his own explosions didn't manage to deafen him at some point, this fucking crowd would.)
She then took off, skidding down the tiles ahead of the group and launching off the edge of the rooftop, leaving a flurry of red rose petals in her wake. The mainly-red hunk of metal in her hands opened up as she neared the Rogue, transforming itself into a large, mechanical, mainly-red-and-black scythe that looked a lot bigger than herself.
Squall hopped from the Rogue's shoulder, onto the top of his head, and then onto his other shoulder, before he sprang off the Rogue and made a beeline for Kurosaki.
Ruby spun herself round as she began to fall towards the back of a Titan that was too busy chewing on the skin of the Rogue's abdomen. Katsuki could see the bones of the Rogue's ribcage thanks to the already-present gash in his side.
Ruby darted down toward the back of the other Titan's neck. As she swirled out of her spin, the crescent-shaped, silver blade of her scythe sliced through the patch of skin and flesh in-between the back of its head and the nape of its neck.
Effective immediately, Katsuki could see the Titan's mouth fall open against the Rogue's side, and its arms and hands fall limp at its sides. Its legs wobbled, before its knees buckled beneath it and it dropped into a kneeling position. Then, it flopped over, onto its side, crashing into the ground with a hard, rough thud.
Ruby followed up with a backflip, landing not too far from the Rogue's feet.
Another Titan, tall enough for its head to be level with the Rogue's chest, soon fell away from the Rogue, collapsing backwards onto its ass while Spring swerved (and rather smoothly, at that) around its side, using only one wire to haul herself towards the last one of the smaller Titans that'd been chewing on the Rogue's leg.
"DIE!" Spring's voice sounded almost uncharacteristically rough as she screeched, but despite the genuine anger that must've been behind it, Katsuki snorted.
"Yeah! Kick their asses!" he punched the air, almost hitting Deku with his grenade gauntlet.
Spring's blades barely seemed to pierce the back of the smaller Titan's neck when a shout came from Kurosaki:
"SQUALL!"
An explosion of debris blew over from Squall's and Kurosaki's end of the street. Squall's oddly-limp-looking form flew among the debris, barrelling toward where Ruby, the Rogue, and Spring were gathered. He hit the ground with an audible crack that made even Katsuki wince. Then, after Squall rolled over a few more times, he soon skidded and stopped on his front, face-down on the ground.
A steel-blue sheen enveloped Squall's form. It flashed, and then flickered, before it faded away just as quickly as it'd shown up.
"His Aura!" Mikasa gasped, sounding practically breathless. She, too, then took off down the rooftop, hopping from the edge. A small wave of royal-purple erupted and rippled around her feet when she landed on the ground below, but she appeared to ignore it as she made a beeline for Squall, throwing herself forward as she reached his side, and skidding into a kneeling position beside him.
"What the hell?!" Kurosaki called, rushing to join Mikasa. He stopped at her right. "That seriously knocked him out cold?"
Mikasa slipped one arm around Squall's shoulders. Lifting him almost into an upright position, she lowered her head until her ear was next to his mouth and nose. She stayed there for a second or two, before she moved her head away, and looked up at Kurosaki. "I don't think he's out cold. He should come to in a minute."
"That's just great..." Kurosaki sighed, looking severely unimpressed.
Spring hopped into a backflip, away from the smaller Titan she'd aimed for. It swiftly dropped to its knees, before careening onto its side. "He's bound to be exhausted from all the fighting he's been doing!" she called out as she landed, whirling halfway to face them from the side.
"It's—!" Armin suddenly piped up, his already-wide eyes stretched even wider, as he stared at the side of the street where Squall and Kurosaki had just been fighting. "It's the Titan that injured Thomas!"
Katsuki followed the direction of Armin's stare.
The Titan that Armin seemed to be talking about was rather skinny and lanky in appearance, with a head of short, blond hair that didn't look that much different from Reiner's. It appeared to be heading towards the Rogue, along with the rest of the group that'd gathered around him.
Ruby whirled to face the new Titan, raising her scythe. With the scythe's blade poised behind her, she dashed forward, the same trail of red rose petals following her.
The new Titan must've noticed her approach, apparently, as it quickly bent into a crouch and sprang, in much the same way a grasshopper would, directly at Ruby. Its arms looked almost limp as they hung almost at its sides, but its hands were fast, both of them darting forward.
Ruby barely any time to react, only managing to shove one of her feet out ahead of her before attempting to push off of it, into a jump.
The Titan's hands closed around her, clasping and wrapping around most of her form. Despite leaving her arms free, her grasp on her scythe faltered, and it fell out of her hands, hitting the ground with a click and a clack.
And, as if things weren't bad enough, the Titan itself finally landed its jump, crashing into the ground with such momentum that its massive body ripped the ground as it skidded through the stone surface.
"RUBY!" Deku, Ichigo, Spring, and Mikasa all screeched at once.
The Rogue finally started to struggle then. With his legs still in well-enough shape to be of use, he tore himself away from the last Titan still keeping him pinned to the wall, and, once free, he charged towards the blond Titan that now had Ruby in its grasp.
In a matter of seconds, one of his feet hit the ground beside the Titan, and his other foot was swinging at the Titan's head. The bridge of his foot swiftly slipped under the Titan's chin and slammed into its jawline. The resulting crack sounded horrible enough, but then the Rogue kicked his foot out further, swinging his kick as far and as severely as he could, until the Titan's head ripped off its shoulders, the skin and flesh of its neck tearing apart through the middle.
And then its head flung back towards the end of the street it'd appeared from. The sickening crack and splat of what was probably the skull as it shattered against the wall could be heard – all too clearly, at that – even from where Katsuki stood.
The Rogue briefly planted his foot down on the ground, only to lift up his other foot, holding it above the Titan's already-severed neck.
He slammed his foot down, stomping on the back of the Titan's neck, and crushing it beneath the sole of his bare foot. Then, he raised his foot again, and stomped on the neck again; and again, and again, and once more, before lifting his foot higher than he had the first time, and slamming it down on the Titan's neck again one last time.
His jagged, skinless mouth, made up of only a set of exposed teeth, opened. A low, guttural growl left his throat.
Despite the venom, the bitterness, the sheer fucking rage that could be heard in his growl, it died out fairly quick, and was just as swiftly followed up by him dropping onto one knee. A groan, rather than a growl, was next to slip from deep within his throat, as he barrelled over, careening onto his side, the same as most of the Titans before him had done.
He landed face-down, next to where the other, decapitated Titan's hands laid on the ground, with a seemingly unconscious Ruby laying in their now-much-looser grip.
"Ruby!" Kurosaki called, the slap-slap-slap of his barely-noticeable sandals echoing throughout the area as he sprinted over to her.
Katsuki hadn't been expecting the entire street to suddenly quieten down once the Rogue stopped fighting. Still, if anything, at least the entire situation felt a lot more calm now.
Plus, at some point during the Rogue's last attack, Spring had apparently taken care of the one remaining Titan that the Rogue had simply just shrugged off, so, as far as Katsuki could tell, the group seemed to be good for now.
Well, aside from Squall, Ruby, and the Rogue taking major hits, but still.
Annie moved one of Squall's arms to rest across her shoulders, while Mikasa did the same with Squall's other arm, and together, they lifted him up off the ground.
Meanwhile, Kurosaki approached Ruby's side and immediately crouched down beside her, hooking an arm around her shoulders. He lifted her upright as his hand held her shoulder. "Hey, c'mon. Don't tell me you went down that easy!"
A blast of steam erupted from the Rogue's nape.
A few thick-sounding, somewhat-squishy noises seemed to come from within the nape – as if the flesh and muscle inside it were being stretched, or even pulled off of something that, for whatever reason, might be being held within the assortment of tendons and muscle fibres.
As soon as the clouds of steam started to thin out and disperse, Katsuki realised there did happen to be something – or, rather, someone – inside the nape.
A boy. One wearing a pale, drab-coloured shirt, apparently with long sleeves, though one of those sleeves had been partially torn off, just below the elbow, leaving his forearm mostly bare. His hands gripped either side of the opening in the Rogue's nape, and, using them as leverage, he pulled himself up and off the flesh around him while crimson strings of what appeared to be muscle tore away from his face, as if they'd been stuck to his skin.
"Wait..." Armin sounded almost breathless. "Is that...?"
"You're kidding..." Reiner, too, was staring pretty incredulously at the guy still in the process of climbing out of the Rogue's nape.
The guy yanked his legs out of the mass of flesh and muscle fibres, revealing he was wearing the same white trousers that the rest of the Cadets wore, if only without all the brown straps that seemed to be for their gear. And, on that note, not that Katsuki was expecting him to, but the guy also wasn't equipped with any gear, either.
Just his shirt and his white pants, the latter of which appeared to be the standard for the soldiers around here. He didn't even have boots or a jacket.
"Ruby!" the guy called, as he stumbled off the side of the Rogue's now-steaming neck, his bare feet softly landing on the ground. "Is she okay? I didn't see if her Aura flickered like Blake's did earlier," he rambled in somewhat of a clumsy manner, as he crouched down at Ruby's other side, sparing a glance at Kurosaki in the process.
"I, uh... don't think Ruby's Aura flickered..." Kurosaki was blinking at him, as if he was unsure what to make of the guy. His brows twitched. "Who... are you, anyway? How do you know Ruby?"
"Huh?"
He looked up, meeting Kurosaki's eyes. His expression looked almost blank as he blinked back at Kurosaki, as if a bit confused, but the realisation of his situation soon seemed to dawn on him, and his expression lightened.
"Oh, I'm Eren Jaeger. I met Ruby when she and her team first arrived here this morning."
Okay, so there's something I want to mention about Eren. Since you've made it this far, you've more than likely realised that Eren not only has some knowledge/awareness of his Titan-Shifting abilities, but also a fair bit of control over his powers, too. The reason I did this for Eren is because I was looking up facts about AoT a while ago (just general facts, because I was bored and curious), and I found one that stated that Isayama was going to originally have Eren know about his Titan powers, but later scrapped the idea, and I'm assuming that that's why we see him first discover his powers during the Trost Arc, rather than at any other point, like during his years in the Cadet Corps or something. I don't know if this fact is confirmed at all, but I liked the idea of it.
Also, I did this because I'm still grieving over Ymir's death and the fact that we missed out on plenty of interactions that Eren and Ymir could've had (specifically about their Titan powers, but also other stuff, too). Plus, I thought it would've been cool if Ymir had been one of the first people to know about Eren being a Titan-Shifter and decided to lowkey help/train him to control his powers during their years in the Cadet Corps.
Really, I just fucking miss Ymir. I'm sure there are at least a few of you reading this who feel the same way I do about what happened to her.
Now for this reminder again:
Since this fic is being rewritten, there will be inconsistencies in future chapters if you're reading this in March 2022. I'll get my ass in gear, and hopefully have the rewritten/improved Chapter 7 published by the end of April. I'll also be searching for anything in the previous chapters that might need fixing. So, with that said, I ask you to please not go any further than this chapter right now, to avoid future confusion – there are plenty of inconsistencies, and some things are being retconned. Once Chapter 7 has been updated and republished, you'll see this disclaimer at the end of that chapter and I'll be removing this disclaimer from this chapter. The removal of this notice will mean that Chapter 7 has been updated and republished for you to read. If you still have any questions about this arrangement, then feel free to PM me or perhaps even leave a review, and I can explain this further.
