The laundromat was small and tucked away on the second story of a larger business that cut keys and repaired scrolls. It wasn't very clean, with spots of black growing in the cracks of its tiled floor and brown stains flecked the blue porcelain squares. To Blake's sensitive nose it was pretty unpleasant, with a distinct lingering undertone of ammonia beneath the lavender floor cleaner. It was possibly the worst laundromat in the city, and it wasn't even the cheapest or closest to Blake's hotel. For Blake, there was only one reason to go to it, and that was because it was the only one within any reasonable walking distance that was open at all hours of the day or night. The machines were mostly unattended by the owner who only collected the money from their use each morning, and otherwise left them available for anyone to use at any time of day.
For Blake, who worked until closing time at a sports bar and then hiked across town for a fight most nights of the week, she wasn't able to get most things done in normal business hours. Usually the only contact Blake had with anyone else at the laundromat was a sign on the wall that read, 'Do not leave clothing unattended. We are not responsible for stolen property.' Given that she had an hour to kill until her clothes were washed and dried, she decided to go to the empty lot next door and practice with her new bokken.
Under Raven's tutelage, and with almost no other way to kill time without any books or a scroll, Blake was finding herself improving pretty rapidly. The bird wasn't exactly the kindest or most patient teacher, but she had a deep knowledge of aura and swordsmanship, and a lot of insight to offer. Currently, Blake was trying to master the aura blade, a particular Iado technique that involves projecting part of your aura along the blade of your sword, through the air that could even cut foes at range. She remembered that Adam could do it, but he had only just begun to teach her how when the coup happened.
"What other martial arts do you know?" Raven asked, perched on the fence. "Every now and then in your fights I see you using moves I'm not familiar with."
The question brought a slight pang of pain that Blake wasn't expecting, as memories of her mother and father rushed over her all at once. For just a moment she wasn't standing with a wooden sword in an empty lot on a chilly Mistral evening, but back home in the warmth of menagerie, watching as her mother demonstrated the fastest ways to draw a concealed weapon.
Blake quickly shook her head and focused on the present. After taking a moment to swallow and make sure her voice wouldn't crack she answered. "I learned swordsmanship from Adam Taurus, but I learned a lot from my mother before that. She taught me a traditional martial art for noble women from her hometown that had a focus on concealed and improvised weapons."
"I don't think I've ever heard of it." Raven murmured.
"That's deliberate. It's supposed to be a surprise weapon of last resort, taught by family members or private instructors. The whole point of it is to catch people off guard, so advertising it would make it less effective."
"Hm." Raven seemed satisfied by the answer, but somehow, now that she'd started Blake kinda felt like she should keep going.
"Mother's father was a human, former aristocracy from northern Mistral, on the border of the Corpus Sea. I never met him, but mom said he treated her like he treated all his other children, despite the fact she was the child of a maid."
There was a pause, as Blake waited for Raven to make some comment, but none were forthcoming. When she glanced across, she saw the bird was turned away and examining the feathers of her wing, distractedly.
"..."
After a moment, Raven lowered her wing and noticed that she was being watched. "What?"
"...Nothing." Blake sighed, breaking eye contact. Maybe they didn't have any kind of close relationship, but she had been talking about something a little personal, and half expected some kind of reciprocation, if not a little empathy.
"I think your laundry should be done by now," Raven pointed out, and seemingly didn't see the glare that was shot at her.
With an annoyed sigh, Blake zipped the bokken back into its waterproof bag and walked back across the street to the laundromat. Only, when she got back she found quite an unpleasant surprise waiting for her. Rather than a pile of dry clothes, she was staring at the empty drum of an open machine.
"They're gone." Blake hissed, turning to Raven. "Fly outside, see if you can find whoever stole them!"
Wordlessly, she took off, disappearing back down the stairs and out of view. After a short few minutes she came back. "I couldn't see anyone nearby, they're probably long gone."
"Damn it." Blake snarled, sniffing for any trace of the person in the air, but there were too many smells of different people and body odors for her to single out one. "Damn it!"
"You're just going to have to buy new clothes in the morning."
"There goes all my savings." Blake slammed the drying machine door shut, before slumping forward. All she was wearing was the same white shirt and pants she wore to work every afternoon.
"At least they didn't get your money." Raven replied optimistically. "This is a setback, but it isn't a disaster."
"Yeah." Blake agreed and reached for her back pocket, only to freeze when she found it empty. "...My money's gone."
"...What?" Raven turned her neck to face her.
The memory flashed back to Blake's mind from earlier that evening, of changing clothes and she realised where the roll of cash was. "I left it in the pocket of my other pants."
"...Fool." Raven grunted, and hot, frustrated tears welled in the corners of Blake's eyes. "Well, let this serve as a lesson. You still have a job, and you've paid for your hotel room tonight, so not all is lost."
At first Blake wanted to yell at her, but she knew that the bird hadn't said anything wrong. It had been foolish, it had been her own fault, and really there was no one else to blame. How could she be so stupid? Her shaking fists clenched at her side, she didn't say a word to Raven for the rest of the walk home. Humiliated and frustrated, she crawled into the bed of her drawer like hotel room, wondered why she was ever stupid enough to leave home.
"Here." A bundle of cloth wrapped in plastic was shoved into Blake's hands the next day at work, and a similar one was given to Fang. "Uniforms." The restaurant owner explained. "Let me know if they're the wrong size, I've got more in the back."
When she put it on, Blake found herself garbed in the black and white of a professional bartender, adjusting her new bowtie in the bathroom mirror. It was made of somewhat cheap materials, but didn't carry the business's logo anywhere. At a distance, it looked a lot like what a bartender from an uphill establishment might wear.
"You look good." Fang complemented when Blake stepped out of the bathroom, before going inside to change herself.
"Do we leave this here, or can I take it with me?" Blake asked the owner.
"As long as you take care of it, I don't care." He answered. "I'm issuing you three, but if you lose or damage them then the replacements are coming from your pay." He warned with a glare.
An enormous feeling or relief washed over Blake, as she realised she'd have something else to wear until she could afford new clothes.
Another night, and another broken bokken. Blake was currently four wins to zero losses as far as her fighting career went, and her record with wooden swords was the same. After each and every match she had to replace them, and replacing this one would mean she'd have to put off replacing her wardrobe for another night.
Holding the two parts of it in her hand, all she could do was grit her teeth in frustration and leave the arena. Surely there had to be a better way, this was getting ridiculous. "Would a baseball bat work better?" She asked aloud, though Raven didn't seem to hear her over the sounds of the venue.
The pay for each fight was decent, and Blake would have been happy to enter more if she thought she could win, but the problem was too many of them looked like they would be against opponents well outside her class. There was nothing that appealed to Blake less than jumping in a pit with an off duty huntsman or even just a student enrolled in Haven Academy. Under Raven's tutelage she felt pretty comfortable going up against a lot of the students from the local combat school, but that was about it, and unsurprisingly there wasn't a deep pool of under sixteen fighters in the Mistral underground. Without seriously risking her health, Blake was stuck on the slow drip feed of a small number of low paying fights.
When she approached the bald, heavy set fight promoter for her pay out, he eyed her up and down. "What's with the gettup?" He asked in a thick Arkosian accent.
Without anything else to wear, she'd come to the fight in her work uniform, minus the bow tie and vest jacket. "Does it matter to you?" Blake replied, quickly.
The man shrugged and pointed a finger at her right leg. "Doesn't seem to have held up."
When Blake followed his gaze she found a cut in her pant leg, running from just above her knee down to the inside of her ankle. Instantly, a groan of frustration rushed out of her. "Oh, nooo."
Of course she didn't wear that pair of pants to work the next day, and she thought she would get away with it until the owner suddenly asked her, "How'd you get that cut on my uniform?"
It was especially bizarre that he knew given that Blake had left the damaged pants at home. "How did you know about that?"
He raised an eyebrow. "I'm not blind. Look at the back of your shirt."
Reaching behind herself, she quickly found the rip. "Oh, not another one."
His eyes narrowed at that. "What do you mean 'another one'?"
Blake winced. "The leg was damaged too."
He stared at her for a long moment, scowling. "How?"
"They were cut in a fight." Blake admitted, a sinking feeling in her gut. Somehow she suspected she was about to learn what being fired felt like.
"Why were you in a fight?" He demanded, glaring.
"I'm… trying to become a huntress." Blake answered honestly. "I'm trying to earn enough money to pay my tuition for a combat school, and I've been competing."
"Doesn't explain why you're doing it in my uniform." He folded his arms.
"My other clothes got stolen." She tugged at her shirt. "These and my underwear are all I have."
"Just buy more."
"My money was with my clothes…"
He froze at that, before sighing and knuckling his forehead. "I don't know what your story is, but you should go back to your parents, kid. This city isn't a good place for runaways."
There was a pang of pain in Blake's chest, and she could only wonder how long it would take until she stopped feeling this way at the mere mention of Khali and Ghira. Looking away, she answered him only after swallowing down a hitch in her voice. "I'm not a runaway."
There was a pause. "Damn it, I don't even know your name, kid." He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, and looked across to see Fang standing there awkwardly with the vacuum cleaner in hand. After a moment he beckoned to Blake and turned away. "Come into my office so we can talk."
His office was small enough that his big dark wood desk looked out of place. He had to suck in his gut to squeeze past it, before collapsing heavily into a chair that groaned under his weight. When he saw that Blake was still standing there, he indicated another chair with his hand and waited for her to sit.
There was a long moment of silence as he looked for what to say. "I don't need to hear the whole story, but you're from Menagerie, right?"
Blake looked up, shocked.
"Yeah, I figured from your accent." He sighed, and his hands twitched like he wanted to do something with them, but he forcefully kept his fingers on the table. "...I have a couch?" He declared suddenly like it was a question, looking directly at Blake.
"Do not take him up on that offer." Raven warned. "He might make it with good intentions, but men are not to be trusted. Who knows how he'll feel about you in a week or two of having you in his home."
"I-I can't." Blake shook her head. "I-It's just not safe."
He blinked at that, taking a moment to understand why before he looked away. "I'm married." He grunted, sounding half offended.
"Sorry." Blake apologised awkwardly and then considered his offer more carefully. Not having to pay for the hotel every night would really help her a lot. Not to mention she should be able to defend herself. Looking over to Raven, she said aloud. "You're not a trained fighter, are you?"
Not aware of where Blake was looking, he answered. "Oh, no. Never in my life."
There was a pause, and Blake raised an eyebrow at Raven, who shifted in place before saying, "Okay, but be very careful. I can keep watch while you sleep."
"I think I will take you up on that." Blake lowered her head. "Thank you."
After the shift was over, Blake followed him through the darkened streets of Mistral, and the both of them were caught in a light drizzle. By the time the two of them made it to his home, they were both damp and greeted at the door by a woman who could only be his wife. She was of smaller height and build than him, but maybe even a little heavier. She greeted them both with warm towels to dry off, and offered Blake a set of pajamas that would fit like a tent at best. Evidently, she had been warned that she would have a guest.
"Oh, you poor thing. Let's get you warmed up and to bed right away."
Not quite sure how to resist, Blake found herself bundled into the shower in a hurry, and emerged from it smelling like the woman's peach scented shampoo and conditioner.
"Do you have your own toothbrush?" She asked as she insistently brushed and dried Blake's hair, and was answered with a nod. "Good."
The couch wasn't a perfectly level surface, but it was a lot more spacious than what Blake had at the hotel, and it was a dramatic upgrade to what she put up with as a slave.
With Raven looking out, Blake slept so deeply through the night that didn't remember any of her dreams at all by the time she woke up to the smell of frying bacon and eggs.
The dining table was set for three, and Blake was soon seated in front of an enormous plate with four pieces of buttered toast, eggs and a pile of bacon that was honestly much too large for any kind of healthy meal.
Perched on Blake's shoulder, Raven commented. "That explains why they're both so fat."
If there was any risk of someone else hearing, Blake might have hushed her for being rude. The married couple finished their meals, and their guest gamely made it through her own, though by the end of it she was massaging her distended belly to fight off a stomach ache.
"Now, dear." The large woman began. "I haven't been introduced to you, and my husband hasn't seen fit to grace me with your name, either."
"Bl-" She began to answer, when Raven slapped the side of Blake's face with her wings.
"Don't give them your real name. You're still a political threat to the White Fang, they can't know you're alive until we're ready."
Quickly, Blake tried to think of a false name, but found herself drawing a blank. In the end she said the first thing that came to mind. "Rave-"
Again, she was slapped. "That name is even more dangerous."
"...Crow?" Blake tried again.
Raven wasn't pleased. "That's my brother's name, think of another."
"Sorry... Um, Magpie?" Across the table, the other two were watching her with confused expressions. Blake hurried to explain. "The White Fang might still be after me. I'll just go by Magpie for now."
"..." The two of them exchanged glances, but then the woman nodded. "Alright, dear, we understand. My name is Maud, and this is my husband Geoffe."
"Thank you so much." Blake said quickly. "I'm really grateful for the food and the bed."
"Now don't be getting too grateful." Maud warned. "We might be able to help you for a small while, you cannot be here forever, understand?"
Swallowing nervously, Blake nodded.
"Now tell me, sweetie, what are your plans for the future?"
Blake hesitated before answering. "I have relatives in Vale, my uncle's family. If I can get to Vale, I was going to enroll in a combat school."
"I see." Maid said, glancing at Geoffe in a way that made it clear she wasn't quite satisfied with that answer. "And how are you planning on doing that?"
"I've been trying to save money, but… it's been hard." Blake admitted. "Everything disappears the moment something goes wrong. I keep needing to replace my wardrobe or whatever else when it's stolen or broken."
"To be honest, dear, I don't think you're going to be able to afford the tickets to Vale, let alone your tuition fees. Do you know your Uncle's family at all?"
Well, given that they're entirely fictional…
"And what makes you think you can get into a combat school?" Maud continued. "And even if you can graduate from one, that's no guarantee of getting into a Huntsman Academy."
"I'm very strong." Blake quickly answered. "It sounds like I'm boasting, but it's true. I've never been beaten by anyone in my age group, and I even know I can handle most adults!"
Maud looked distinctly unimpressed, but Geoffe gave the teen a look up and down. "You mentioned you've been fighting, but I haven't seen you in any tournaments."
"That's because I haven't been in any. I've been in underground rings." Something about what she said apparently upset them both, given the way their expressions darkened and Blake worried that she'd been flippant in her answer. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude."
"That's fine, dear." Maud hushed her and exchanged a look with her husband, before smiling at Blake thinly. "Why don't you get started on the dishes for me please?"
Glancing between the two of them, Blake slowly nodded once and nervously stood up. She moved around the table, collecting the plates and cutlery before walking out the door, casting one glance back at them. Raven used that hesitation to jump off Blake's shoulder and sat on the back of one of the chairs saying to her. "I'll listen in and tell you what they say in a bit."
The couple had a dish washing machine, and Blake listened carefully for their voices as she rinsed off the dishes then stacked them in the machine. Even with four ears and her superior sense of hearing, their voices were muffled by the walls and they spoke in low tones. All Blake could make out were a few key words like 'criminals' and 'dangerous' in Maud's higher pitch.
A few moments later Blake heard a scratch at the door, and quietly opened it. Raven quickly hopped inside before jumping up to the bench. "She wants to help you, but worries you'll bring trouble to them," Raven explained. "I get the impression he wants to help, though. I have an idea, listen closely."
By the time Blake had dealt with the dishes and cleaned up after herself, she'd finished hearing Raven's plan and been convinced it was worth a shot. She had her doubts, though.
"Do you really think they'll go for it?"
"I think they both want to help you, they're just worried about being taken advantage of," Raven explained. "If you can appeal to their better nature with something more concrete than a vague plan of meeting an obscure relative in Vale, they'd be more inclined to help."
There wasn't really time to argue the point. Through the walls, Blake could hear the married couple's muffled discussion slowing down, and she didn't want them to settle on a plan before making her proposal. She swallowed nervously before quietly knocking on the door.
The discussion on the other side stopped, and Blake waited a moment before opening the door, just as Raven hopped onto her shoulder again.
"I have a business proposal?" The two of them looked confused at that, and she hurriedly added, "I know you can't run a charity, and I don't want you to help me in exchange for nothing, but there might actually be something I can do for you."
There was a pause before Geoffe answered for the two of them. "Alright, we're willing to hear it."
There wasn't really a reason to delay, so she just launched straight into it. "The restaurant can be my sponsor for the Mistral Tournament. It's part of a larger franchise, right? B.R.T."
He blinked in surprise, and Maud looked cynical. "Could you really qualify?"
Blake hesitated only slightly before saying, "I could even win the whole tournament."
A doubtful look came over his features. "In Menagerie you might be strong among other Faunus, but Mistral is a lot bigger and has a lot more competition."
"He's wrong." Raven reassured. "For your age you're very strong."
Geoffe didn't hear her and continued to explain. "There's only one city in Menagerie, Kuo Kuana, and it's only a twentieth of this city's size." He shook his head. "Plus all the competitors from other parts of the continent, like Wind Path, Kushinashi or Argos." He then added. "Particularly Argos, given last year's champion."
"I know." Blake breathed out, trying to hide her frustration. "But I don't even need to become champion. There's prize money for everyone even in the top four. Please, it's just five hundred Lien for the registration fee, that's all I need."
At the mention of money, Geoffe immediately looked incredibly reluctant.
"...We can afford that much." Maud pointed out. "Really, it's the least we could do."
There was a pause as both women watched for his response as he thought it over. After awhile he reluctantly breathed out, "Lets see how you do in the Valley Qualifiers. We can talk about this more after I've seen how you fight for myself."
Enormous relief washed over Blake, and a tension she hadn't known was there suddenly disappeared. "Thank you."
Uncomfortable, he looked away. "Don't thank me yet, I can always take it out of your pay."
"Geoffe." Maud said his name like it was a reprimand.
Suddenly he stood up and walked towards their bedroom. "I've got to go get ready to open for lunch. Don't be late this afternoon." He told Blake as he pulled the door closed behind himself.
When he was gone, Blake turned to Maud. "Thank you so much."
"Your welcome, sweetie." She smiled. "I put your uniform in the machine and hung it out last night. It should be dry by now. Why don't you get dressed, and then you can help me with a few errands?"
"Of course." Blake immediately agreed. If helping Maud carry some groceries about town was all she asked for in return for everything, that was more than reasonable.
It turned out that the couple did actually own a car, Geoffe just left it for Maud to use during their day because she had further to travel than he did. For the first time in her life, Blake was riding in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle. She found it to be a peaceful experience, watching the flow of foot traffic walking past them as the light rain pattered against the roof and rolled down the wind screen. It turned out rain wasn't so bad when you could watch it from somewhere dry. The drive almost felt... cozy with Raven sitting in her lap, the heater on, and the radio playing old pop tunes.
Back in Kuo Kuana only the people who needed to travel to remote settlements across the continent would use a car. Her father owned one, but only ever used it when he was needed somewhere outside the city, and it mostly gathered dust in the garage. Blake dimly wondered where it was now, and what the White Fang were using it for.
Helping Maud with her errands wasn't difficult at all, mostly involving pushing a trolley around while the woman fussed over two different eggplants that both looked the same to Blake. Before lunch they visited a butcher, a baker, a place that sold sewing supplies, and a small department store where Maud was kind enough to let Blake pick out a few pairs of new underwear to replace the stolen ones.
They got back home just before lunch, and Maud fell onto the couch with a relieved groan. "Well that's my exercise for the day." Then she took out a needle and thread, and began to patch up the rips in Blake's uniform.
Normally at this time of the day, Blake would be trekking from the hotel to work, but the bar was only just a few streets down from where she was, and she wasn't quite sure what to do with herself. Maybe this would be a good time to train? Just as she had that thought and went to retrieve her bokken, Maud spoke up.
"Magpie, dear, if you don't mind, why not tell me your story a little?" Maid asked. "I don't need all the details, but I want to hear how you made it here all the way from Menagerie."
Blake exchanged a glance with Raven, who simply told her, "Lie."
The story she told wasn't that far from the truth. Rather than getting in a fight with her father and running away to join the White Fang, Blake said that Magpie was innocently sleeping over at a friend's house on the night of the coup. In the story, Magpie's parents had been harassed by the White Fang in the past for being wealthy and having partial human descent. Because of this, they'd stashed some emergency money away just in case, and Blake had used it to buy passage with a smuggler to take her to Vale, but was then betrayed and marooned on the closest Mistral port to Menagerie. The boat even left with most of her things. Magpie then hitched her way across the desert, avoiding Grimm and slavers, before finally arriving in Mistral after sneaking onto a train.
The most important thing was it left Magpie's hands clean. There wasn't anything in there about being a member of the White Fang, or killing four men to escape slavery. Compared to Blake Belladonna, Magpie was innocent and non threatening to a pair of small business owners.
Blake had tried her best to maintain her composure during the story, speaking in the most neutral tone she could manage and trying to stick to only the facts, but nevertheless had wavered and stopped at a few different points to get her story straight inside her head. Despite what Blake thought was a poor performance, Maud seemed to have interpreted most of her hiccups and pauses in light of her being a traumatised orphan, and was shedding sympathetic tears by the end of it. That alone was more than enough for Blake's false emotions to become quite real, and swallowed by the very real memories of her parent's deaths, she had to step into the bathroom to compose herself. It took longer than she thought it would.
When she finally did, she took one step out and saw Maud looking at her with obvious sympathy, and decided she didn't want to spend the rest of the day crying. Blake excused herself and went outside to start training, despite the rain.
No doubt Maud had told Magpie's story to her husband, because Blake found him to be much less surly over the next few weeks until the tournament started. The couch was pushed aside in the living room so a mattress could be laid on the floor in its place, and for those nights Blake enjoyed the warmth of the bed and the smells of a real home. It might not have been hers, but it was a level of comfort Blake had nearly forgotten in just a few short months.
The biggest problem was the enormous meal portions. They were to the point Blake was seriously worried she might gain weight, and she made sure to never completely finish her plate. It also helped that Raven worked her to the bone when it came to training each day. With the extra exercise time and calories Blake did regain weight again after her malnutrition as a slave, but under Raven's careful eye it was lean, hard muscle and not flab. Blake was feeling better rested and more confident than she had in a long time.
"Don't get attached." Raven warned, not for the first time. "We had a deal, remember? We're only using these people because they're soft-hearted and weak."
"I know." Blake murmured.
"If you become fat and useless like them your parents will never be avenged." Raven continued to lecture.
After about the fifth time, Blake suspected the bird seemed more nervous about Geoffe and Maud than she did about the upcoming competition.
There were two different open qualifiers for the Mistral tournament in the city, but there were two more in other parts of the kingdom. Sixteen people would compete in an elimination style format for the grand tournament, with four slots being seeded for previous competitors, eight being held open for representatives from different combat schools, who held their own internal tournaments, and only four slots were there for people who made it through the open qualifiers. In past tournaments, the winners were mostly from among those seeded, who were often big brand sponsored athletes with professional trainers and carefully managed diets.
The winner of last year's under thirteen bracket was competing in this year's under fourteen, and was expected by most to win again. Pyrrha Nikos's fame didn't quite extend down to Menagerie due to the lack of television in most people's homes. Her family wasn't lacking in money, but Blake was always more of a reader and so were her parents. She only learned of Pyrrha from the front of a box of cereal of all things, one that was much too sugary to be part of any serious athlete's breakfast.
That was something to think about another time. Right now Blake needed to focus on winning her way through the matches in front of her, and today she came well prepared. The competition was being held in a little league football oval on the edge of where the suburbs gave way to the city proper. It left plenty of room to battle in each individual fight, and allowed them to get through plenty of fighters on the day. Blake could see what looked to be almost a hundred people there to compete.
"Are you going to be okay?" Geoffe asked, looking at the crowd, doubtfully. "That's a lot of people."
"They're not all here for the under fourteens." Blake explained.
There was a range of teenagers, from the under thirteens right up to the under sixteens. Before her first match started, she had to register her weapon or weapons of choice at the front desk to make sure she wasn't bringing anything too dangerous to a fight between children. The lady at the front desk raised an eyebrow at her choice of weapons, but made no comment otherwise. After Geoffe paid the entry fee and signed a waiver as Blake's guardian, she was issued a numbered jersey to wear and sent to wait for her turn at the edge of the field.
There was a small crowd of spectators there to watch, and Blake saw Maud already seated among them. The other competitors eyed Blake up wearily, but not more than they did anyone else. Blake was somewhat surprised to see a lizard Faunus with a scaled neck and a long tail among her competition, and self consciously adjusted the ribbon atop her head.
There wasn't any kind of digital readout for someone's aura here. These battles would be judged by a referee, who would call out the results when someone's aura broke. There would be no second day, and the method of counting was simple. Whoever was able to defeat the most opponents in a succession of one on one matches before their aura broke would be the winner for their division, and get to compete on the main stage.
After a couple of matches the referee called out, "Fourty seven to the field!"
That was her number. Breathing out, Blake tried to shake off her nervousness and made her way to the field. Her hand gripped the hilt of her weapon with white knuckles, and she had to remind herself to relax.
Her first foe of the day was a human boy in a wife beater with a shaved head. He sneered contemptuously at her wooden sword, spinning his machine pistol daggers on his fingers showily.
"Fourty seven ready?" The referee looked to Blake who nodded. "Twelve ready?" When he got the nod he raised a black handkerchief in the air, pausing for a moment before dropping it. "Begin!"
At this level of competition, live ammunition wasn't permitted and Twelve charged forward, bringing his daggers around in a beautiful spin to perfectly and unblockably eviscerate his foe. His eyes widened in surprise when she made no move to defend herself and his blades cut straight through the black haired girl's flesh and red spilt out.
He would have shouted for a medic, if a wooden sword didn't suddenly cut up through the shadow clone, dispersing it, and impacting directly on his chin. The force of the blow cracked the sword, and it exploded into kindling as the boy was lifted off his feet and sent flying. His aura held, just barely and he looked up just in time to see Blake smoothly draw another wooden sword from the duffle bag on her hip, which held dozens more like it, and jam the point of it into his belly. His aura broke and the blow carried through to his stomach. He collapsed to the ground, wheezing, and Blake was declared the winner.
Feeling confident, Blake returned to the crowd and awaited her next chance.
The practice with Raven had really paid off. Learning to form her shadow clones with a blend of Raven's blood red aura and her own semblance gave them a disturbingly realistic appearance when struck.
"Well… I'm a big enough man to admit it when I'm wrong." Geoffe said from the driver's seat as the three of them made their way home through the light weekend traffic. "Congratulations."
"Thank you." Blake replied from the back seat.
"...I think it might be good business for my brand to sponsor you after all."