Ruby was in the school's firing range, tuning Crescent Rose and working on some improvements she had in mind. She aimed at a grimm shaped target, breathed in, and pulled the trigger. A heavy boom echoed as the paper target's head disappeared from existence. Satisfied, she wrote down some notes in the notepad next to her on the counter. The main problem she had was that the rife form's accuracy was a tad greater than if she used the scythe mode, and that was something she wouldn't allow to what she considered her one and only child. She was interrupted from her troubleshooting by the nearly silent footsteps of… a large man? She whipped her head around, her eyes fixing on "Professor" Richard. He was wearing a casual sweater with two leather pistol holsters strapped to the sides of his chest and some khaki pants.

"Hey Rubes, testing something out?"

"Mhm. I can't seem to figure out what's wrong with Crescent Rose."

"Hmm… What exactly is the problem?"

"There's a difference in accuracy between the rife and scythe form, and I'm trying to figure out why that is." She continued to check every part of the weapon, but couldn't find anything wrong with it. She slumped over the counter in defeat.

"Have you tried disassembling it and looking in the internals?" Richard walked over to the stall next to her, and pulled out an ammo box. Looking closer, she realized it was elemental .45-70 rounds, a mix of fire, ice, and gravity. What is he doing with such powerful rounds and only two pistols? Her question was soon answered when he unholstered two of the most beautiful revolvers she had ever seen. Both were huge for a revolver, and looked like something from before the great war. Each had gold engravings of vines and even bunches of fruit, like some sort of garden. The lines of gold snaked around the gun, a spiral of filigree. The metal was a perfectly polished onyx black, the handles made of a smooth, pearl antler of some kind. She couldn't help but squeal at the sight of such wonderful guns. Richard nearly jumped 2 inches of the ground in surprise and looked at her with a shocked expression.

"What was that?!"

"Ohmygoshhowdidyougetthosewheredidyougetthem-" As she took a quick breath to continue her barrage of questions, Richard thought quickly and clasped his hands on her cheeks, staring right into her eyes.

"First off, breathe. Second, ask your questions slowly and one by one. Got it?"

She nodded.

He took his hands away, and she took a deep breath, trying to force herself to relax. It warmed his heart a bit to see such enthusiasm for a craft, even if it was for something only meant to kill and nothing more. Ruby asked her first question, barely able to keep herself in check:

"What are their names?"

Richard arched his eyebrow slightly. "Names? I never really named them, but I understand the tradition. Not that I practice it myself."

"But they have to have a name! It wouldn't be fair if they didn't!", cried Ruby as she looked at Richard with an upset glare.

Now Richard was and is a very strong-minded individual, but everyone has a weakness, even a Lord Inquisitor is not immune. The chink in the Auramite wall of Richard's mind was his fatherly love and instincts. He attempted to struggle against the judgmental part of his brain that was yelling against capitulating to the young lady's demands, but that small little voice that told him he would be hurting the young girl that acted so closely to Anastasia. All reason died upon the squeaking of that tiny conscience. Richard sighed, visibly slouching. He couldn't say no, no matter how hard he tried.

"Alright, you want to name 'em?" Somehow that made the young lady even more upset.

"No! You have to be the one to name them since they're yours!"

"Fine, lemme think for a moment." He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a thin rectangular carton. Flipping it open, he pulled out a lho-stick and lit it, breathing in the chalkish blue smoke and then slowly exhaling it. Ruby coughed when the smoke drifted towards her, and wiped her eyes. She hated smokers, as they took up more space with the fumes and smell they produced. Richard noticed her discomfort, and snuffed out his stick, crushing it in his mechanical grip.

"Sorry. Not a fan of smokers?" He smirked. Ruby shook her head uncomfortably. He couldn't blame the kid for being so against something designed to kill you early in your life, that is unless you have the money and tech to stay alive. Which he did, but that won't stop the damage from being a hard obstacle. Didn't I start smoking after the end of the Sabbat World's crusade back when I was in my 30s? It started after I met Saint Sabbat herself, and her words still haunt me to this day when I think about it. "You're closer to the original idea of what the Emperor wanted an Inquisitor to be than you realize." Like that's even possible. I may be Terran born, but I've deviated so far from the inquisitorial norm that I don't think the Emperor even knows I'm still fighting the good fight. Richard was torn out of his trance by Ruby tugging his sleeve.

"Have you figured out a name?"

With what he was thinking about, a sudden inspiration came to him. An Inquisitor is someone who takes the burden of protecting people and the Imperium seriously, who knows when to be tender and when to be vicious. Put the flock before the shepherd, as he used to say. He knew what to call his guns now.

"I'll call 'em… Tenderness and Merciless."

Ruby squealed again, causing Richard more discomfort, but the young lady managed to calm herself down quickly. Richard quickly pulled out the dust ammo, and loaded it into Tenderness. Ruby could only watch as he perfectly aimed a shot at a 4-inch steel plate target, and fired. What should have been normal gunfire turned out to be a deafening boom as a bright light erupted from the revolver and the metal was engulfed by a dark void, but not before being torn apart in a single shot.

Ruby looked at Richard with the eyes of a child enthralled by an awesome new toy. "Woooaaaaaaah, what kind of gun is your revolver?!"

"Ummm, It's an archeorevolver. It's a step up from a normal stub gun, since it uses archeotech to turn the bullet into a railgun shot. Not something you can easily get, sadly." Even though he felt like telling her this was dangerous, he knew she was naive enough to not do anything dangerous with the info. He decided to focus on something else, namely Ruby's weapon malfunction.

"Can I take a look at your weapon? I won't break it I promise." Ruby looked at him with protective distrust, but handed over crescent rose anyways.

"Alright, let's just take a look at the parts, namely the barrel and extension function for the melee adaptation." Richard then carefully began to take off the receiver cover, and even though he had never handled such a weapon, Ruby was amazed that he could take it apart so easily without damaging the internals. He quickly stripped the weapon's extending barrel, and held in his hand a small little metal barrel ring.

"This should be it. Seems like it's damaged. How'd you do that?"

Ruby knows her weapon from the inside out, but she's not perfect by any means. Yet she couldn't figure out why she didn't figure that out by herself, and why the Inquisitor figured it out so easily. Before she could ask him anymore questions, she heard a buzzing coming from Richard's pants pocket.

"Oop, 'scuse me while I answer this. Hello? Oh, hey Glynda… Now? You sure you're free? Sounds good, I'll see you there. Love you, bye."

Ruby's face flushed red. Did he say 'Love you'? A-are they in a relationship? So the rumors that spread are true! And th-they-

"Oy. Rubes. You there?"

She woke up from her embarassed stupor and looked up to see Richard already packed up, ready to leave. "Y-yes, sorry."

"When are you able to join me in the library this week? I promised you that I'd help you study a bit."

"I should be free Tuesday at around 2 pm. B-but it seems you might be more busy-"

"Ruby, if my relationship with Gylnda is getting you flustered, then maybe I should email you instead of just talking right here. It's fine to be flustered about this stuff when you're young, but when you're at least 19 you should be at least somewhat stonefaced about this."

The young lady bowed her head in shame, but Richard put his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes with a hard yet… somehow caring stare.

"Promise me you'll stay safe with this kind of stuff, and that you'll try your hardest to break your barriers with socialising. I do care about you since you remind me of when I was young. Even though you've been struggling so far I still see so much potential in you. You'll study hard and try to make friends, right?"

Those words touched the tendrils of Ruby's heart, snaking into her ventricles and filling her with a level of determination she had not felt since she first forged her Crescent Rose. Why do I feel this way, is he manipulating me? No, why would he do that? He has no reason to, and he's been nice to me so far anyways. Any doubt was quickly washed away, and when her confidence was brought to above average levels, she nodded her head and took the parts of her weapon with her, jogging to her dorm.

Right hook. Left palm strike. Sidestep to the right. These steps were necessary for her to win against that bastard. Yang's fury had hardened to a cold determination, her mind clear for one purpose: Putting that bastard 'Inquisitor' into the ground. She pummelled the punching bag into a pile of heavy sand and ripped plastic fabric. Her anger was beyond any she had felt so far, not because of how Richard had arranged to settle things in a way she was likely to do, but that he thought he could beat her at her own game. He doesn't even have a fucking aura, for brothers' sake! I wanna ring that bastard's neck and snap it! Aaaarrrrghgghg! She had arrived at the old gym that nobody goes to anymore in the slummier side of the city just like they had planned, yet he didn't even show up-

The door opened, squeaking as the old rubber and felt rubbed against the matted floor. The man himself had finally arrived. He was dressed in tight boxer's shorts, with an exercise shirt displaying a two headed eagle, wings splayed out, like some sort of triumphant bird of war.

"Sorry I'm late. Shall we get this started?"

"Yeah, its time for you to pay."

The man only smiled, yet it sent chills down her spine. She hesitated, but he took his shirt off, revealing an impressive set of muscles and scars, and hopped into the boxing ring that was set up in the middle of the room. She leaped in, and both of them got ready for the fight.

The silence of the staredown that followed was broken by the bellowing warcry of a very angry bruiser, moved by the corporeal harm her sister went through. She rushed the Inquisitor in a fury of attacks, but none of them hit, each punch easily dodged by the man. Her anger soared to new heights, eyes turning blood red and her hair on fire, she threw a quick haymaker aimed at his lower abdomen, feeling the crushing of flesh as he coughed up blood.

"Fuck!" Richard knew the fight went bad when he got hit, feeling his body practically quiver from the impact. He gritted his teeth and struck her shoulder socket with his metal palm, dislocating it and sending the girl stumbling back. She quickly popped it back into place, which is all the time it took for Richard to press his advantage, throwing another palm strike at her solar plexus.

Yang's breath went out as a wheeze, her body crumpling down and her face staring at the blue floor, gasping for breath. Her aura quickly healed her confusion, and she uppercutted the man in the chin, sending his head flapping back. "How about you go fuck yourself!"

Richard barely managed to recover as Yang threw another punch, barely dodging it and dislocating her arm again with another palm strike. His main gameplan was to disable her. He already knew about her semblance from rummaging through the student files, and he should not get hit, nor deal enough damage to activate her ability. Dislocating and concussion was the best way to go, and he wasn't sure if pressure points would even work when aura was a thing. He cleanly swept his leg, tripping her as she tried to take a defensive position.

He waited for her to get up, as he wouldn't just knock her out when she's down. No. He wanted a fair win.

"I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

"I'll see if you can at least try."

Yange despised his oozing confidence, and despite the obvious heavy bruising he has on his stomach, she would say he's even able to fight just as well. She hated how he let her get back up after tripping her, like the fight was already decided. She threw another punch, aiming to break his collarbone, but her dodged just out of her reach, and roundhouse kicked her in the stomach, sending her tumbling back. She spat out blood, and they continued to fight, earning many, many bruises and blood mixed with spit starting to appear in ever-increasing amounts on the arena floor. When they finished, both were covered in purple splotches and Yang had earned a black eye for her troubles. She couldn't fight anymore, she was so tired. He didn't look any better either.

Richard was the first to start speaking again: "Can we *pant* call it off *pant* for now?"

"*Deep breath* Sure. I'm *pant* done fighting you."

Richard laid down, breathing heavily. "You fought well. Gave me a challenge, even though I'm much better at a sword or mace."

She laid down next to him, and they sat in silence for a few moments, regaining some of their spent strength. It was after that she spoke, not with the usual hatred in her voice, but with satisfaction mixed in with a hint of admiration. "You did good too. You gotta teach me those palm strikes sometime, cause they were nasty."

The man she used to hate chuckled, and to her own surprise, it didn't sound too bad to hear ears as what she expected. She groaned, realising how late it was and how much blood and spit they needed to clean up. "We gotta clean up this mess. Ugh, and it's a Sunday."

"I'll help. Its our mess, plus it should be good menial work after a fight." They slowly cleaned up, their limbs aching unto the moment she snuck into her dorm room and went unconscious and slept soundly for one of the first times she had remembered.

Hey... It's ya boi, skinny-

Nah, I'm just joking. Sorry for the wait you guys! I took way too long to finish this. But I hope you like it! Not much longer until I head off for the loading chunk error that is Wyoming, so on September 3rd onwards I'll be offline for at least a month, if not more. Got some important work to do.

If you know me on discord, feel free to ask some questions, as I love answering them!

Thanks so much for all of you viewers who make the serotonin flow, and I can't believe I'm already at 6,500 something views for 8 chapters.

Thank you so much,

Lord Inquisitor Richard